


A Queen's Dame

by InnocentiaBlake



Category: Tomb Raider (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, Gen, Multi, Vampires, romania - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:33:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26015056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InnocentiaBlake/pseuds/InnocentiaBlake
Summary: As Lara Croft investigates the transport and destination of an ancient artifact from Siberia, a very strange and personal request will force her to change her focus.
Relationships: Lara Croft/Original Male Character(s), Lara Croft/Samantha Nishimura, Samantha Nishimura/Original Male Character(s)
Kudos: 16





	1. „Don't wake me up unless the Queen herself calls”

In the middle of the night a motorcycle ran at high speed through the slowly retracting gates of the Croft estate. In the front door, a tired looking middle-aged man, waited for the speeder to pass, and pushed the remote button. „Thank goodness she didn't crash” thought Mr. Winston - she never did crash, but he wondered what would happen one day if he was too slow to open the door.

It was no surprise for him to see Miss Croft in her leather jacket and skin-tight pants, all black, with no distinctive markers. As she stopped the bike in front of the entrance and climbed out of it, he couldn't stop thinking about how dangerous her attire and road attitude was. He knew, however, that he couldn't voice it, unless the Lady asked for it. He stood there, in his day suit, as if the sun still shone outside and Lara arriving at the expected time of the day.

„Hi, Winston, I hope everything is ok, I think we'll have to fix a bit the gate, it opens too slowly”

„Indeed it does. I'll see to it first thing tomorrow morning.”

She threw her jacket in his arms, revealing a very thin top.

„It's hot these days, way too hot” she said as she unbuttoned her pants while walking. „I hope there's nobody here to see me” she continued as she undressed herself walking through the hallway towards her own room, leaving the pants for Winston to pick. He moved quickly behind her and picked them up, annoyed but unwilling to accept the defeat of expressing the feeling in any way.

„It is no Peru, my Lady”, he continued, reminding her of the icy mountains from her quest years ago. „Is there anyone I should contact to get a hand of the rest of your clothes?”, trying not to ask where her underwear disappeared.

„There's no need, Winston, thank you. That'll be all...”

„There is one thing, in your absence Mr. Harris”

„MI6?”

„Yes, Mr. Harris, from MI6, called. He wanted to say hi”

Lara stopped and turned towards the butler who was walking behind her, almost bumping into her half naked body. Winston stopped for a second, looking her straight in the eyes.

„Since when does Mr. Harris call just to say «Hi»?”

„Well, he asked me if I'm aware that Lady Croft is colluding with Russian agents. Obviously, I wasn't, and I assured him it was not the case.”

„Russian agents? He was just a nice guy in a bar, and we had a drink and a fuck”, Lara said as she undid her bra. „Man, I've been waiting the entire day to do this.

„I take it Mr. Leonov wasn't a suitable match, or his alcohol resistance is well below his conationals”.

„I'm sorry?” she stared at him, all naked, right before leaving the hallway for the pool.

„Ahmed Khan from the Police department assured me that he'll recover in a few days”

„Ah, that. You had a busy evening, talking to all sort of people”, she smiled at him as she opened the pool door. 

„I apologize, my Lady, it was not my intention. Mr. Khan was quite upset about your speeding violation as you left London. I already paid the tickets, but he begs you to be more careful next time”

„Does he now?”

„Indeed he does, my Lady”

„Tell Ahmed I appreciate his concern. Thank you. I'll sleep in the guest house tonight, please don't wake me up unless the Queen herself calls. It seems her functionaries are busy disturbing you from your leisure time.”

„Yes, my Lady. A clean set of clothes is on the chair near the pool. Should I turn on the lights?”

„You know I love a bit of night swimming”

Winston nodded. He bowed and, after storing Lara's clothes to be cleaned tomorrow morning, turned the lights on to her underground study. He knew what the „guest house” really meant, and there was no need to further explain things.

He'd watch her from time to time as she swam naked in the pool. It took him some time to accept and understand this side of her; her disregard for sexual etiquette inside the manor. He had to get used to seeing Lord Croft's daughter walking around naked because she wanted to take a swim, or the Surrey air was too hot for her. It made it impossible to have permanent help around the house. The hardest was to accept that the little girl he held in his arms and played with ever since she was two was now one of the most attractive and sought for women of England, as well as one of the most libertine. „A Lady should be modest”, he tried to explain to her, but she looked at him and responded with a stern: „A **Lady** should be modest”.

So as he wrapped up the day, Winston finished setting up the alarm system, and then took a cigar, waiting for the Sandman to pay him a visit. He looked towards the pool as Lara splashed joyfully in the moonlight. „She's safe”, he thought, and rechecked the alarm systems, and dropping his glasses on the report that Mr. Harris forwarded him. Lara was messing with dangerous people, and she knew it. She deserves a bit of rest and enjoyment.

It was 7 AM when he had to walk to the guest house and bring the old phone. He knew that it would be the worst time of day to do that - she went to sleep at around 6, just as he woke up. At 7, the landline called.

He opened the door and placed the phone on the night stand.

„My Lady Croft, I apologize”.

She turned around, furious. „I thought I told you not to wake me up”.

„Unless Her Majesty the Queen calls. Indeed you have. Her Majesty is on the line”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm re-learning how to write; it's a longer process for me, and I hope you'll be patient enough (including my command of English which might be lacking at times) and in the end the story will be worth your time. I'm quite excited about writing the next episode, although I have no idea how to write it. It's fine, I had no idea how to write this one either. 
> 
> What's the point of the story? I love Lara Croft, I love Tomb Raider, the original Tomb Raider - the one from the original movies and the original games. Yes, I added a reference to a well known movie moment, but I will not pursue the canon of either the movie or the games. In fact, I'm so not good at keeping track with the canon that I consider this a completely different universe; the story happens today without being real-life 2020 (because who wants that?). I'm portraying Lara the way I perceived her, before her character was reimagined and reinvented splendidly by Rhianna Pratchett for the new games series. The older, bolder, more secure, more driven, more powerful Lara is the Lara I grew up with, so that's the one.
> 
> To be honest, I'm not sure if there will be smut. There might be. There should be. We'll wait and see.


	2. An invitation or two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lara lies about the call she received, and she prepares a rushed „vacation”. In the mean time, she receives word that Sam is in town.

„It was a wrong number”

She woke up around 2 PM and Winston brought a freshly made omelette with a glass of orange juice and an espresso. Lara wondered from time to time when did Winston actually manage to bring fresh produce in the Croft estate; he never seemed to leave home or do anything for that matter, yet the manor was always in not perfect, but acceptable shape. She knew that Winston was completely opposed to bringing new personnel for the manor - at least not until the pesky business of the Croft estate inheritance was settled. He also refused pay, although for the time being, Lara lived on a comfortable pension that Lord Croft set up for her before disappearing.

She had her brunch in the kiosk of the back garden, edged by her training track. As always, Winston sat there, waiting for the famished woman to finish her meal, and Lara never knew how to handle the situation. It made for awkward conversation, but she tried from time to time to break the ice.

„I beg your pardon?”

„Wrong number. The Queen called the wrong person. Or her staff did. We talked a bit about cars which reminds me that I wanted to have a look at Musk's cybertruck. I don't trust pictures or video”

„I can try to reach out to the Americans for this”, Winston replied, with a sour grimace on his face. Lara noticed the displeased look, but chose to ignore it.

„It is ugly, but I think I like it.”

„It is a suitable box for modern day London, I agree.”

„The Queen agrees too. She's not very happy that her doctors will not let her drive the car anymore.”

„That never stopped Her Majesty.”

„She's also quite disappointed with Charles. She felt like she needed to talk to someone about this, and it felt like I was as good as any to chit-chat about this with. He's spending a lot of time in Romania, of all places.”

„Ah, Land of the Vampires, street thugs and cheap labor.”

„He has a village there. His mother is baffled by all the time he spends there, as his wife is roaming London all by herself.”

There was no response. Winston poured a glass of water, and wiped the dew from the glass.

„I'm thinking of taking a vacation. Perhaps you should too. You deserve one.”

„The estate cannot afford a vacation right now, my Lady, nor can it afford the required personnel.”

„It's a house, it can afford a lockdown for a week or two. I'll prepare a small part of your due wages...”

„My Lady, knowing your financial record, I must decline. Let's wait for the suit to settle.”

„I talked with Ana and she was eager to help. She'll send a repair crew for the task list of things-to-repair-when-we-finish-the-lawsuit that I know you maintain.”

Winston threw back a disapproving look.

„You know we're not in a lawsuit with Ana, we're in a lawsuit with the Croft Enterprises. Which we own. Or should. Anyway, she invited me to one of her mountain-side hotels in Europe. A nice, quiet place. I'd be more than happy to know you could have a bit of vacation yourself. I probably will not stay there for long, and be out of her hair quite fast - you know that I don't like to stay in one place for long. Plus, this place has an interesting legend about a gold cache I'd like to look into. I'll be mostly in the archives of the local museums.”

„If Miss Ana will send a repair crew, the manor repairs would require my presence here more. Also, I don't need a vacation.”

Winston looked nervously towards the plate, the cold left-over omelette which Lara seemed to forget about while discussing with him. She understood the hint, and ate in a rush the rest of the meal.

„Your eggs are amazing, you'll need to teach me how to do this. Thank you.”

Winston nodded. He gathered the dishes and as he prepared to clean the rest of the table, asked.

„What will happen with your Siberian dagger investigation?”

„It will have to wait. There's no reason to rush, not with Alexei in hospital.”

„The Russians are a violent bunch, they might try to fight back.”

„As far as Alexei knows, I'm an ambitious club fiend who stole some jewelry and hit him in the head to run away. Not the first, not the last. The dagger can wait. We deserve a break.”

Winston noticed the anxious look on Lara's face. She was definitely hiding something, especially with that „wrong number” thing. The direct line did not have a „number” - if there was someone from the Queen's office who mistook a link that might be a thing, but asking for Dame Lara Croft was not a mistake. But if there's anything that gave it away is that „we deserve a break”. Never on a mission, never until that dagger, ring, paper, was in her hand, and then in the family safe.

„Where would that vacation house be?”

Lara browsed through a few printed pages, with a raised eye-brow. „Bra... I don't know how this gets read... Bra-zov. I will need a bra, it's what this place tells me. I'll be out shopping today with Sam. She's back from Lisbon”

„I will prepare her room”

„No need, the guest house should suffice. She'll not be around for long. Thank you, Winston”

She didn't see Sam in quite some time. They met at a photography course in London, with Lara quite interested in the technical side of things and Sam interested in the artistic side of things. They paired up and worked together on the graduation project, a one-week study of London parks. They talked and talked - Sam had a way that melted even the ice-cold and distant Lara. The daughter of a Japanese magnate and a Portuguese model, she barely stayed for more than a few months in one place. Her mother hired her a tutor who traveled with her for a year, to teach Sam the basics on how to read or write. For everything else there were private courses, like the one she made friends with Lara.

She was so easy to befriend, everyone gravitated around her naturally. Lara did not; she was reluctant to pair with the most popular girl in the class. But perhaps Sam saw her as a challenge, or she was attracted by the cynical introvert that Lara was. After that week they kept in touch, and Sam took the train from Paris without her mother's knowledge when she learnt about Lord Croft's disappearance. It was then that Lara cried for the first time - and the last time, as far as the outside world knew - and it all happened in her friend's arms.

Every time Sam arrived in town, she was sure to let Lara know. As Lara took on to travelling, backpacking in the places that her father once travelled, she tried to be as close to Sam as possible. Lara visited Sam in Japan the first time she went there. They went clubbing in Shibuya and Gangnam. They walked together to the summit of Kilimanjaro. They kissed on The Bund, by the water, under the worried looks of a Chinese patrol.

Now Sam moved to Lisbon, with her mother on the verge of the family divorce. She started doing auteur documentaries; one of her twenty-minutes films on the street life of Lisbon became a hit, and one of the most prestigious directors asked for her hand in marriage at Cannes and she accepted. But things were slow to happen, and Sam went back to Lisbon, becoming quiet all of a sudden.

And this is when she finally told Lara she'd visit London. Lara was eager to hear from her but she never dared to call her. They had their protocol - if she needed her help, all she had to do is ask. Lara knew she'd be an issue - a close friend and occasional lover is not the best person to tell you if you made a mistake accepting a proposal. But now, with Sam in London, Lara was relieved. Nothing bad happened to Sam, not yet, at least. 

It was her usual daily routine after the incredibly late brunch. Timed herself to the training course spread around the garden and manor. Took a shower, then a short nap. „I'll be eating with Sam”, she assured Winston as he packed her subcompact Storm's Fury handgun under the fuel tank. He showed her earlier the paper sent by Mr. Harris, discharge papers for one Alexei Leonov.

Sun was setting as Lara sped through the slow gates of the Croft manor, with Winston worrying for her impatience.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Initially I wanted to send Winston with her. It didn't work. Although Lara is quite elusive about her intentions, everything will be clearer quite soon.


	3. In which Lara breaks a few things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lara meets Sam and she ends up breaking a few things. Most importantly, herself.

The goons at the entrance tried to stop her, but the concierge intervened. „Countess of Abbingdon, pleased to meet you. Miss Nishimura awaits.”

She entered with a sure foot, ignoring the eyes attracted by the noise of her boots; instead, she looked for Sam, and didn't see her at first. The maître'd picked her up, and lead her to a séparée where a glacial Sam was looking over the menu. The maître'd laid another menu on her side of the table, while Lara found it difficult to sit. She waited for the man to leave the room, only to have Sam jump in her arms and hug her tight.

„I did scare you, didn't I? Didn't I?” she said with a giddy voice.

She did scare her. She did scare her before, when she stopped her constant chatter via e-mail - her favorite mode of pestering Lara when in absence. She did scare her when she didn't return her calls. She did scare her when she had to read... the nerve, read, in the glossy papers, about her film and the very public proposal. She was relieved to actually hold her close now.

She took a seat next to Sam, not in front of her, as the waiter suggested, and held her tight still. „God, I missed you, you silly kid! What was all this?”

„I never knew you cared this much! But yes, I guess you knew that I'm going to get married.”

„Who is the guy? Is he a nice person? I didn't spend enough time to find out more about him.”

She lied. Of course she did. In fact, that was the most important reason to be scared. The man was a notorious cheat, with big names in the movies industry as former lovers. Sam's presence there in the list was natural, although she was the least notable name there. And her disapproval could be widely seen on her face, as she uttered the words.

„It's fine. We broke up. Right after he proposed to me he was in bed with another actress. She was, apparently, so impressed with his grand gesture.”

„So why the silence? What happened?”

„I needed some time to think about things. I just didn't feel like talking. I took a longer break.”

„Good, good. You scared me, a bit. Don't do that again.”

Sam prepared to say something, but that's when the waiter entered. Lara looked over the menu fast, and took, in the end, Sam's recommendation. „I'm famished”, she smiled towards the waiter that got lost in her low-cut T-shirt. He nodded, and agreed with Sam's choice.

As the waiter left Sam jumped on her and kissed her. It was a playful kiss, with her lips barely touching Lara's, but she'd have none of that. With her hand around Sam's back she pulled her closer, and fully dove in a kiss. They remained there locked like two teenagers who finally found the perfect spot where they won't be seen. In a sense, Lara felt like a teenager with Sam.

They stopped soon after, with both of them almost drained of energy. Sam laid her head on Lara's shoulder, and spent a bit of time like that, just enjoying the moment. Lara, on her end, did not want to continue - not here, not now. They already knew who she was, and she expected some very eager people to look at the surveillance right now. They would probably not use that, they wouldn't dare, but tabloids writing about Countess of Abbingdon in the middle of a fairly publicized civil lawsuit was not the best thing that could happen. And Sam wouldn't receive this quite well either, as her very public proposal was, in the public eye, still a thing.

They exchanged a few words, and Lara was more than happy to see the waiter entering with the cart. She didn't lie when she said she was hungry, and the chef got the memo - her steak was huge compared to the junior plate that Sam had in front of her.

Half an hour later, after exchanging niceties about the food and drinks, Lara asked bluntly:

„So why did you come here?”

Sam ignored her question, and she tried to continue the chit-chat about some uninteresting model on the glasses. Lara remained unphased, and repeated the question, this time on a more serious tone.

„Why do you ask? I missed you, of course.”

„I missed you too, but you're lying. You had another reason to come. What was it?”

Distraught by Lara's cold, sharp tone, Sam stuttered. She never expected the blunt, rough interrogation, and she was unable to answer. Lara waited, uncharacteristically patient.

„I... I... I need to ask you something, Lara.” Sam made a longer pause, sipping a bit of water and thinking on how to continue. „I. Uhm. I need to know, Lara... what are we, Lara?”

She turned towards her, crying, finally able to let that out of her chest. „I sat for a full month to think about this. What are we? Are we lovers? Did you ever want us to be more? Will we ever be more?”

If there was anyone but Sam, Lara would've found it quite easy to answer this. But it was Sam, and she was unable to say anything. There was no good answer to a very good question, but Lara did not want things to change. But no matter what she would say, the answer was wrong. No? The truth was too much to bear, and she couldn't just say it like that. Yes? That's a huge promise she knew she couldn't keep. She did want to have Sam around. She did want to have her in her arms, to feel her skin, to feel her body tremble under her touch. But that's not what Sam was asking for. She wanted more, she wanted to be wooed, she wanted to be courted, she wanted an exclusivity Lara couldn't promise.

For a moment Lara regretted the question she herself asked. It got them stuck on an unanswearable dilemma, stuck in an unbearable discussion, inside a restaurant's séparée. Perhaps inspired, sensing the tension, the waiter saved the evening. He entered, saw the tension, and started commenting on the food - and then the silly latest gossip about some actor. It didn't matter what, Lara finally saw the light, as Sam stopped crying and started laughing a bit.

They walked a bit afterwards, then Sam took the dangerous route - a ride as a passenger on Lara's bike - to her hotel. She was leaving early next morning for Japan, to see her father, so she couldn't accept Lara's invitation at the Croft Manor; the very few shopping bags that Lara helped her carry were just a few things to get her by for the next days. They weren't alone as they took the elevator to the 11th floor, nor as they walked towards Sam's room - the next-door neighbor for the night was walking slowly behind them. He took a glimpse at them as he passed their door that was slowly closing behind them, watching them as they laid the shopping bags on the floor.

It was Sam who threw herself over Lara, hunting her lips and trying to pin her against the wall. It almost took Lara by surprise - almost, as she caught Sam and pulled her close, then turned her around to pin her against the wall. Then eagerly she started kissing her neck, her chest, initially fighting with the shirt's buttons but then deciding that she had enough, and ripping it off. As Sam tried to say something, fumbling words, with only an discerneable „Lara” to be interrupted by a gasp, as her bra released her breasts and Lara kissed them. She got lost for a second, then wanted to feel Lara's skin against hers. She tried to reach below Lara's waist, trying to pull her T-shirt, but her hands felt powerless. Lara threw herself back for a second, taking off her leather gloves and her T-shirt, throwing them on the table, dropping the glass wine cups laid there in waiting. They stopped for a second, and laughed at the broken glasses. „I'm more of a coffe girl myself”, Lara said, as she eagerly resumed undressing herself, and then throwing herself at a naked Sam on the bed.

It always felt amazing to feel Sam give up to her embrace, as Lara turned her around, spooning her, lifting her knee, bringing her calf around her own knees as her right hand spent its time enjoying the wet warmth, teasing her fingers' entrance, touching softly until she felt the first small involuntary quakes. Sam tried to turn a bit around, searching for Lara's kiss, but she just succumbed to her kisses on the neck, on her shoulders, completely giving up self control as she felt her teeth bite the base of her neck. Her body shuddered, as Lara's fingers dove inside her.

It was this part that Lara enjoyed deeply. The total feeling of control, Sam's complete abandonment. Like noone's, her body communicated how she felt, what she needed, with small quakes, with moves that tried to anticipate Lara's, with louder and louder moans, begging for Lara not to stop. It's when Lara bit her shoulder, cupped her neck in her palm and squeezed, stopping her moans as Sam's body exploded under her hand. She soon released her neck, allowing her time to breathe, as she came again, as Lara just slowed her rhythm, but never stopped.

That measure of control over Sam was more than enough for Lara. To hold her soft body, to feel the soft, warm touch of her soft skin, to feel her fully relaxed, falling asleep together... that's all she wanted from her. That's all she needed.

It was breaking dawn when Sam woke up, her phone's alarm ringing. She usually wasn't the kind to take waking up in the middle of the night lightly, but this time she was up, looking over Lara's naked body, not daring to touch her. Lara smiled, and wanted to say something, but Sam stopped her.

„You broke my heart without even knowing. I understand what you mean. I know how you feel, and what you don't dare to tell me. We can never be more than we are now - the closest of friends, the fieriest of lovers. I can accept that we'll never be more. I'll look somewhere else.”

Lara nodded and hugged her. She felt Sam's tears falling on her shoulder, and tried to say something again, but this time, her throat was too dry to actually be able to articulate anything. She took a second and tried again, this time breaking the silence with a strange voice that not even she recognized.

„I'm sorry I can't offer you more than this. You shouldn't have stopped for me.”

Sam cried, and for a second, Lara felt a warm drop leaving her eye too. She hugged her tighter, and then let her free as the second alarm on the phone called for Sam's attention. She had to take a shower, and prepare her luggage.

An hour later, they were saying their goodbyes as the limo waited for Sam to drive her to the airport. In the chilly morning sun they hugged, and, still fighting with a few tears, Sam asked her:

„Please, write me. Tell me everything about your adventure there, I want to know about it. And I'll be very upset if you drop me a one-liner like last time. «I'm in Peru, it's cold and I'll have to climb a mountain». No, tell me everything. E-ve-ry-thing.”

„It's just Romania. I'll be looking in some archives, I promise there will be nothing exciting.”

„There will always be something exciting happening with you. You owe me this much”.

They hugged one last time - an elegant lady and a biker tramp, in front of a high-profile hotel, holding on to the hug as if it was for the last time. With Lara, it may very well be.

As the limo left, she stood there for a few minutes, by her bike. A tear went down her cheek, and then another. Sam wanted to offer her that something that she never had, and she never knew how to offer back.

The way back was a blur. She remembered a police line at the exit from London, but passed them on, unsure they wanted her stopped or not. They probably ignored her, as she arrived home. Winston was there, as always, catching her jacket as she entered the manor.

„I'll need a hearty breakfast, Winston, and fast. It's gonna be a long day.”

„You're looking tired, Lara, perhaps you should go to sleep.”

She stopped, struck by the strange and unusually warm familiarity. She felt like she should punish the sudden change of tone, but couldn't. She stood there for a second, then broke into tears, in Winston's arms.

They stood there in the empty hall, until Lara was able to pick Winston's handkerchief, wipe her own tears and blow her nose. She waited to regain her breath, until the soreness from the tears subsided, and replied:

„There's no rest for the wicked”

It's going to be a long day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't plan for smut. It just happened, like these things happen in real life. That being said, some smut, and a loose interpretation of what Lara breaks or doesn't. This was the only way to actually create a very necessary sub-plot, that of Lara writing home; where home, in this case, is Sam. She doesn't usually need help in her adventures, but she will need help for this, and, eh, plots and stuff. You'll see.


	4. In which Lara Croft might be serious about taking a vacation, and Winston has a few secrets

„Do you realize that vampires were meant to depict the British aristocracy? Stoker was a smart guy - having Mina Harker and other aristocrats as aggrieved parts allowed him to flow under the radar, but for anyone reading his thing in early 1900s Ireland the idea was quite clear.”

Winston stood, as he always done, on the side of Lara in the small kiosk where she ate her breakfast. She was surprisingly calm after last night's emotional episode, as well as taking into account that she was preparing to leave the next day. He dared not comment, though, but he prepared her usual „archaeological” supplies, just in case.

„No, my Lady”, he replied as the pause grew uncomfortable. „I didn't notice this element”

„It's rather obvious. Blood sucking, taking the life out of it, you can say that Mina was Ireland, and Dracula the British crown. But somehow, the parallel stops here. As far as I know, Ireland never had a professor Van Helsing.”

Winston nodded. She called him, at one point of time, her „rubber ducky” - he helped her think, even if he rarely engaged in the conversation, usually out of lack of depth in the topics discussed. As he gathered the dishes, Lara continued.

„Now, Stoker was inspired by some legends that were travelling since earlier times, based on some merchants' tales about Vlad the Third, The Impaler. The name follows a strange simile in the Wallachian language between «Dragon», which was his house's name, and «The devil», which ended up to be. Dragon, Draconis, Dracul. It's a strange language, that one.”

„Have you had the chance to study it?”

„No, I only picked up the info the past few days. I was thrown off-track by some idiot analysts who talk about Dracula being a symbol of colonialism and of sexism. I swear, it was easier to research stuff 10 years ago when we didn't have everyone in the world making up stuff about stuff. Now everyone sells their opinions as fact, and it's hard to double-check every single item out there. Anyway, Stoker was a bit too obsessed about his parallel to actually care for realism. He randomly chose a place at the edge of the civilized world as he saw it, and just went on to write his story. But most of his character is based on the stories of old merchants and a real character...”

„Are you suggesting that Dracula is inspired from a real vampire?”

„No.” She stopped for a second, thinking. „Maybe? It's not impossible. But we can't believe stories about vampires, can we?”

„We shouldn't believe stories about atlanteans either...”

„You do have a point, but if vampires existed they would leave deep traces in society, the way the arrival of Dracula did disturb the entire society back here. Anyway, I found out from the strangest place that the London Library still has the research catalog of Mr. Stoker's. I discussed with our friend there to send us a copy. Some of the books are not scanned yet, but he made them a priority. I might want to have a look at them when I get back.”

„I will send them to you as soon as I receive them,” Winston replied, but Lara cut him short.

„No need. If I need them I can access them myself. I'm going to an European country, after all, it's not the end of the world. And I'm on a break. This is just for fun. Anyway, one thing I discovered just browsing is that the link between Vlad the Third and Dracula is founded on nothing else but the speculation of some local historians. There's little reason to think that there's a link between the two. Dracula and Vlad are two different characters. But I'm a bit awed by the spike thing.”

„The spike?”

„The spike. Vlad was known to the germanic merchants from the area as a horrible person who impaled people. Now, if Vlad is not Dracula, and vampires die from being impaled, there might be a link between Vlad and vampires. Namely, he getting rid of them.”

„I think this would be an interesting theory.”

„It feels a bit like some counterfactual thinking happening here. I'm not so sure. Maybe it's a bit of wishful thinking - but historians really wanted to make a link between Dracula and Vlad the Third. And it cannot be as primitive as «we see spikes, impaling, so here's the link».”

„Sometimes, though, there are primitive interpretations, as previous research showed you.”

„Maybe. Maybe it was ideologically motivated, maybe it was just their way of impressing with a theory. Anyway, I'm in vacation mode. I think I'll sit a bit by the pool to take in a bit of sun, please make sure that nobody disturbs me.”

„Yes, my Lady.”

Winston understood that it was an invitation for him to also avoid the place for his own good. It was getting hard for him when Lara kept defying a simple vestimentary code inside the manor; it's one of those things that made him also quite hesitant with the idea of extending the Manor staff, while he could endure the constant protocol breach, others might not be as open or discreet about things. Luckily, the pool was surrounded by walls, and the occasional amateur photographer taking photos from the nearby hills didn't have a good enough angle to see there.

In the mean time, he had to stoically endure Dame Croft's etiquette. Whatever happened in Peru and Greece, her convoluted story about atlanteans never actually caught wind. She faced a similar oposition as to her father's theory about mortality and ancient artifacts spread all over the world. So she chose not to publish, keeping only a small reminder, a bronze bracelet that she kept in her trophy room, in a separate corner. That, and the uncomfortable feeling that she hated clothes. First time he bumped into her completely naked she laughed at him as he tried to bring her a towel, with Lara refusing.

It was the first time he wanted to quit the job. His mission to keep the Croft manor at a raised standard had utterly failed, with Lara as primary point of failure. It took him quite a while to understand that the failure was his to adapt, not her's to behave; she was entitled to anything she did or wanted, and aside the immodest behaviour, Lara was focused, energetic, humane. More humane than he did expect, after hearing the full story of her adventure, and her armed confrontations with the Natla's goons. And, of course, there was the constant stress of her uncle, Errol Croft, trying to claim the estate, as well as fighting over the Croft business inheritance, with Ana as mediator.

He chose to support Lara, despite his difficulty to accept her new extravagances and the occasional visitor (or visitors) she brought; and in those moments, Winston realized, the manor became too small for more than two people. He came to appreciate her relationship with Sam, who, when present, brought a sense of decency and a renewed respect for proper etiquette in the Croft Abbingdon estate. And no pills, powders or other experimental „mood changers”, as Lara called them, with the exception of the occasional cannabis cigarette. But in her absence, Lara was unpredictable as ever, and Winston found it increasingly difficult to respect Lara's intimacy as well as suffer through his own loneliness.

After finishing the house duties, Winston retired to his room, overseeing the pool area. Lara fell asleep as she was listening to something in her headphones, and stillness and silence took over the early afternoon. Winston had about two hours of quiet for some rest, and he sat for a while, admiring behind the window the amazing woman that Lara grew up to be. It was not her face, Winston decided. She was not pretty, but you could read power and determination on her figure, even when she stood there, relaxed, bathing in the sun. It was also the athletic body, her stature and her overall attitude.

Winston often questioned his own motives for staying around. He could've left the first month that the estate was not able to pay him. Lara was 20 by then, already getting by on her own. His duty to master Croft, fulfilled, he could've just left. He was in his late 30s back then, and only a blind man couldn't see how beautiful Lara was growing. Was it lust, love, or admiration that kept him around? Was it a sense of superior duty? All those could simply be dismissed when Lara left for years in a world tour. When she came back, two years later, she was already a minor national hero, stacking the British Museum with recovered artifacts from her travels. She didn't stay for long - their relationship was cold, Lara already distant. She paid his salary out of her own pocket, then has been invited to the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for her work. She received her Collar and Dame Grand Cross of the Order from the Queen herself.

After a short stay, Lara left again, not before asking Winston if he accepted the job continuation. Despite the coldness and the distance between them, Winston agreed, his circumstances somewhat sweetened by a discreet affair with a married woman from Woking. But when she returned, Lara was a changed woman. Winston stood by her and helped her when she tried to explain what happened; it wasn't helpful that the only people who noticed the apparition and disparition of the Atlantis island were secret services unwilling to share this information publicly.

It was then that Errol, Richard Croft's brother, relaunched the lawsuit. All the Abbingdon funds frozen. Caught in the battle, Winston could no longer back down. He had to stand, fight, win, then leave, when everything is safe. And Lara decided she should fight for her inheritance; after all, it was her's. The next years Lara went on different missions to secure funds for the estate. She wasn't always successful, but she returned, battered, ready to take on a new fight. He was there to tend to her wounds, learning to be the medic, the psychologist, the gardener and the butler at the same time. Did he love her? Certainly. Was he attracted to her? Only a fool, man or woman, would deny that she was a physically attractive woman. But there was definitely more than attraction that kept him here. A sense of duty, of purpose.

Was he bored? Sometimes, yes. But most of the times, there were too many things happening around Lara to actually get bored. There were people to discuss with, tickets to book, the occasional call from the Scotland Yard or the MI6. Lara did not lead a boring life. In fact, today was the first time - the absolute first time - when Lara actually stood in the sun, by the pool, for an entire day. And she shall have her privacy, said Winston to himself, as he closed his curtains and laid on the bed to catch a few hours of sleep.

* * *

Winston served the dinner around 7 PM, and he ate with Lara at the same oversized table inside the manor. While the breakfast was too irregular, the dinner was always on time, and, after Lara returned from the atlantean adventure, they always dined together when she was spending the evening at the manor.

„Why Romania?” Winston broke the silence as they remained a bit longer for a glass of wine.

„I thought it was obvious by now”, Lara smirked. „Did Ana ask?”

Winston stopped for a second, confused by the question.

„I know about you and Ana. I know she comes, and asks you questions, ehm, afterwards”, Lara winked.

„She did ask.”

„What did you answer?”

„To be honest, I have no answer. I mean, it most definitely is related to the Queen calling, and Prince Charles spending his time there. But I can't really say if that's the case.”

„The Queen asked me to meet Prince Charles and send a message, indeed. But it's mostly the vacation. I enjoyed today. A lot. And Ana promised that I'd like her vacation place.”

„That's what I told her too.”

„Will she visit?”

Winston wasn't the kind to blush, but he felt a bit of a rush when he replied with a quiet „Yes, she will.”

„She's a nice woman. As long as you don't cross her interests. After all, I remember her taking over my father in the last few years he was around, and she was fierce to say the least.”

Winston nodded. Ana used to be Richard's secretary - she was married to a brewer emigrated from the United States, but their marriage was always in peril. Richard hired her; she was talented, and soon became indispensable to leading Croft Group, the business side of Croft Estate. She soon moved in with Richard - she didn't divorce her husband, but it was obvious that Richard and Ana had an affair. When Richard disappeared, Ana was the natural choice for leading Croft Group. She moved away from Abbingdon, and she soon was caught in the lawsuits that the Croft relatives filed when Lara, underaged, became the sole proprietor of Richard's majority stake in Croft Group.

As Ana left the manor, Winston kept contact with her to ask for help maintaining Croft manor properly. He visited her office, and they had a few long discussions; in the end Ana spent a few weekends at Abbingdon. They visited each other from time to time - never a real relationship, but at least it was a good way to spend a weekend once every few months. They tried to keep things as discreet as possible, hiding as much as possible any hint about anything inappropriate happening. Obviously, they couldn't fool Lara, as she was growing up.

„I took the liberty of packing your exploration gear. Minus the H&K's - you'd have a lot of issues at the customs.”

„I will not need it, but thank you for the thought. I'll have a few changes of clothes, a swimming suit and the nightgowns. I'll be in a village populated with humans, I should be fine.” Lara laughed.

* * *

Early morning, Winston pulled the limousine in front of the manor. Lara came right away, with a relaxed outfit, with a light leather jacket, boots and dark purple jeans. Her hair braided, ready for long travel. She didn't look towards Winston, just took her place in the backseat of the limo, and sat there quietly. The car maneuvered slowly on the stone-paved driveway, then sped up as it exited the manor.

Two hours later, the very same car returned, and from the honor seat came out Ana Miller, head of Croft Group, with the butler of Croft Manor politely opening her door. She got out with a cold, calculated move, as Winston closed the door behind her, then rushed to open the door.

„You think we're under surveillance?” Ana asked.

„They have been watching the manor for the past three months. I didn't want to disturb Miss Croft with this piece of information, and made sure I cleaned up everything they tried to place inside the walls of the manor. We should be safe”, he said, as the door closed behind them.

„That's good. Do you know who they are?” Ana asked, as she handed Winston her coat.

„MI6, most likely, but I cannot tell.” Winston replied as he made sure to place safely her coat. As he returned in the main hall, he found her leaning against the table, with her hands crossed over her chest.

„You've been pretty useless lately, you know?”

„I really think she's there in vacation. I'm not sure about what she was told over the secure line...”

„I asked you to track her every communication.”

„It's a secure line, and Lara activated the jamming system while talking with her. I couldn't find out what she was saying.”

„My sources there knew nothing about the call. Total mystery.”

„All I know”, he said, closing in on Ana, „is that she really stopped all her work. Completely.”, he closed, as he leaned to kiss her. She responded - she kissed him back, while her hands started to unbutton his shirt, then his pants. Winston's job was easier, raising her skirt.

„Completely?” she stopped, thoughtful.

„She kept blabbering about vampires and...”

An angry Ana pushed him aside, making him trip in his pants fallen down to his knees.

„You fucking idiot. You're a useless piece of shit.” she said, as she pushed her skirt down to make herself decent again. She stormed through the door, and Winston rushed after her, taking a minute to make himself decent again.

He entered the driver's seat and opened the window to the backseat, catching fragments of a very angry conversation Ana had on her phone.

„... and have the plane ready. We're flying to Sibiu as soon as possible.”

Winston understood. He closed the window and sped up his way back to the airport. Rush hour would make him waste quite some time on the road, and he couldn't help but notice the black car following them from the manor. He ignored it, focusing on getting a very angry Ana to her plane. They arrived an hour later - quite a lucky chance to not catch a traffic jam. As he entered the small airport, he pulled the car right by the runway, where the plane was, indeed, waiting. Behind him, the black car stopped, and two people dressed in black got out as well. Ana and the two guys walked towards the plane and said nothing to each other.

Winston looked confused at what was going on. He drove out as the plane started rolling on the runway. It took him another hour to get back home. He didn't stop to enter the manor, but instead drove half a mile up the road, and stopped on top of the hill. He walked to a booth concealed between two small trees, opened its door and looked around. He smiled, then walked back to the car, driving through the gates.

He left his phone on the entrance stand, and rushed to his room, to start up his computer. He untied his tie, loosened his shirt as the computer booted, connected the ring to a small scanner embedded in his keyboard, then started typing.

As Lara landed in Bucharest, her watch buzzed. A message: „The watchers were definitely Ana's. She's on her way. I'll start cleaning up the manor now. There will be no «renovation crew».”. She smiled, then casually started the factory reset on her phone after which she dropped it in a random bag in the overhead storage compartment as she pulled her own knapsack.

This should give her at least a few hours, if not a few days. She rushed to the exit, then, as she passed customs, she entered the ladies bathroom. She looked around, making sure nobody is around, and leaned against the cleaning staff door.

Minutes later, a seemingly innocuous cleaning staff member, a tall woman, drove a cart through the crowd waiting for people at the arrivals terminal. She made her way through the crowd, spending, maybe, a few moments looking at the face holding the card with „Croft” written by hand. She pushed her cart further, and as she exited the airport building, pulled out a cigarette. She lit the cigarette, then looked for the cars passing around the curb. She then noticed a public transportation car entering the airport building, and she remembered that she had to walk down a level; she stubbed the cigarette, and ran down the stairs, taking out her cap and her vest, and pulling a knapsack from under the cart.

She pushed a button on her watch, signaling Winston that everything was ok, then shut it down, and dropped it quietly under the bus' wheel. She then climbed the public transport, pulling out a card that Winston prepared. „Don't worry, there's no tracking for this card.” he told her as he helped her pack, after explaining every step she should take in the airport.

„Ok,” Lara said to herself. „Now I should find the Librarian.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this in a day that went longer than necessary, with too many degrees outside and too little sleep. So things might not really work, but it is what it is.
> 
> A bit more context. This happens after the events of Tomb Raider 1 in an universe where Tomb Raider 2 never happened, and Winston is in his mid 40s instead of his mid 80s. Ana being in broad strokes the same character as the one from the Survivor timeline, but of Romanian origins.
> 
> Winston's self-perspective is quite dishonest - it's sorely incomplete, as his actions will prove it.
> 
> And I'm tired.


	5. In which Lara would feel more comfortable in a jungle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lara arrives in Bucharest, and she finds out that things are not going to be as easy as she thought they'd be.

Lara went again through the instructions received. Reach the National Library, the Librarian will be there until 5 o'clock every day. Rather simple instructions, although it would've been much easier if she could keep her phone to follow a map. But her task would be rather simple once she took the proper bus - 783, to the end of the line, and from there, a few minutes walk.

The bus was slowly going towards the city - caught in a traffic jam that seemed to go for miles. It was a Monday, but the jam felt strangely unusual the more Lara took her time to watch the people waiting in cars. These are not your usual commuters, it was packed with people going or coming from vacation - two cars with „the girlfriends going in an adventure but who can hardly wait to get back home” kind, a few cars with the „relaxed boss and secretary” kind, a lot of cars with the pissed off dude and the relaxed hippie girlfriend, and even more with the young married couple with two insupportable kids.

It took about half an hour to go over three or four stations, and Lara was growing impacient. She took the absolute minimum with her, but absolutely no entertainment, and the crowd around her grew thicker with each station. Suddenly, like a gang taking over the bus, six people stalked the yellow devices used for ticket validation, and yelled something that sounded like „control”.

A heavy man approached her - he couldn't fit in a chair if he tried, he was barely breathing, and yelled something at Lara. She looked around, and saw other people stalked by similarly rude individuals, and saw them show their cards; she finally managed to understand that they wanted to check her travel pass. After growling something in a subhuman language, he uttered a barely recognizeable „Tickets, fa, teeeeee-kets”. Lara showed her card. The man took it, spoke to the guy next to him, joked, took his time - a literal full minute with Lara's card in his hand, closed the card to his phone, checked something, talked again with the guy next to him, laughed a bit, then yelled: „not good, not valid. You need to come down.”

Lara took the card back and looked incredulously at the man, as he showed her a badge that looked as if designed by a five-year-old and showed her the exit. The guy yelled some instructions at the driver, and he insisted in showing her the exit; Lara looked around and realized she would have little choice but follow the instructions.

She stepped out, on a sidewalk with a thin wire fence that seemed to enclose a garden, a few commercial banners and a small sign that said something on the line of „Meteorology institute”. As the bus tried hard to re-enter the traffic, it left a desolate view of a road bridge underbelly, with a lot of cars parked in disarray, in what looked more like a car graveyard than a parking lot. Five men followed her and another girl who was pulling two big suitcases and a bag on her shoulder, while fighting to keep her glasses on. They talked with her in Romanian, and she started yelling, then crying, then yelling in a threatening manner at her.

The two guys handling Lara started talking in a broken English. „No ticket, no bus, and fine. 20 euro”. The guy turned to his friend, and he whispered something. „50 euro fine”, he continued, and showed her an open hand and a 0 with the other hand.

Lara looked around again and calculated her options. The traffic was still quite heavy, so they couldn't try much, and in the mean time she noticed one of two pieces of plastic on the course of exchanging owners with the other girl. Bribe worked, then, but the traffic and the waiting got her nervous, and an unsettling feeling set in as she refused to accept the brutish approach of their handlers. She decided then: „No”.

The word came as a shock. She took her knapsack and started walking, when the big guy caught her hand in a tight grip. „FIVE ZERO” he yelled, as he pulled her with great force back. This wasn't the kind of thing Lara took lightly, and she tried to shake her hand out of his grip. Uselessly; the man was at least twice her weight, and barely phased by her struggle.

„I said no”, Lara repeated and she struggled again against his grip. A useless struggle still. „Take your fucking hands off me”, she said on a slow, threatening tone, but her captor ignored her threats. She realized then that the other guy was opening her knapsack. This was no ordinary mob, these guys were robbing her in plain sight, and the people in the cars caught in the traffic jam looked at her ordeal like it was entertainment.

It took only two seconds. A punch in the fat man's face threw him off and he released her. She then pushed herself backwards, throwing the guy who was checking her backpack off into the wire wall. The other three guys looked startled, but didn't approach. Lara then walked backwards toward the front of the station, in the direction the bus left. The only one who reacted was the fat guy who looked pissed off, and he yelled at his friends to catch Lara.

Everyone's attention was caught by Lara's move, and, reluctantly, all the guys started to approach the retreating Lara. The other girl stayed behind, with her banknotes in hand. As the guys focused on Lara, the girl stood there, at first confused, then she put her money back in her purse and pulled her luggage towards the other end of the station, where another bus was struggling to pull.

Lara walked back a few steps, then calculated her chances. These guys seemed threatening, but sorely out of shape, and quite unlikely to follow her if she started running. She didn't know where she was, but she'd have to take that chance, as the suspicious gang seemed to have legitimate claim over her travel pass, and she had no other means of travel. So she turned around and started running on the sidewalk, passing a large institution entrance, following the main road. A few hundred meters she stopped - the air was suffocating from the cars, and her robbers were off her track. She started walking, going through what felt like the most delapidated area outside the city. She then noticed on the other side of the road an IKEA store, and a huge parking lot. A mall.

She walked through the cars that were slowly advancing. A few cars blared at her, with nervous people upset about the few seconds she stole from them. Clearing the first half of the road was easy, but the second half was filled with speeding cars. It took her a full minute spent at the middle of the road until she was able to make a run for the sidewalk, and then to the parking lot.

As she walked through a crowd of cars, then a swarm of people. It was supposed to be a Monday, yet this mall seemed overcrowded, and the cars kept filling up the immense parking lot. There was no unifying theme to the crowd, so it didn't seem like it's a celebration like Christmas or Easter or whatever else. Still, a lot of people, too many for a 2PM in a working day.

She had a plan, though. She browsed a bit through the store, fighting her way through an impolite crowd. She settled on a telephony company representative, ignored the looks that wanted to eat her like she was cake, and hoped that the representative spoke English. She did, even if it sounded like a russian trying to speak New York, but she was able to understand her well - not unlike an immigrant in Britain. She went for an internet card that offered her more options than she had on her plan back home, and she had to double then triple check that she got the terms right. She needn't show any papers; you didn't need that for a standalone card. Things went better than she expected. But as she booted her phone, logged in with her credentials and started the custom setup, she had to leave the store, back into the lazy and rude crowd.

She had to endure the piercing looks until she walked into the food court - there, people were more interested in food, it seems. For a few minutes she thought that for some reason everyone's eyes were on her; it wasn't until she really saw a few other women, some elegant, some trashy, that gained similar looks. Some of them, she felt, even collected them, intentionally exposing themselves to gain the attention of the crowd.

As she took a tray of food from one of the less popular stores on the food court, she bumped in one of these attention seekers. Or, in reality, a tall, thin woman with an overinflated ass and huge lips that looked like a disease rather than a fashionable treatment bumped into her because she refused to budge from her walk in the crowd. She almost tipped her tray, and Lara had some issues to regain equilibrium, while the woman, obviously upset, yelled an incantation that contained two of the words that Alexei uttered from time to time: „kurwa” and „pizda” -- „whore” and „pussy”. She was apalled, but the crowd seemed to support the glass doll, so she didn't insist, she just made sure she was hanging on to her tray and moved on to find a small table in a corner.

She watched the crowd for a bit. Not a lot of older people, most of them young, a lot of them in bad physical shape, or trying to show their trinkets. She felt a very aggressive vibe in the air, and not all of it she could blame on people being poor. People in this mall were not poor, but they were definitely not using their own wealth to their advantage. She suddenly had more empathy for the Romanians she occasionally had to deal with in London; if this is what they come back too, that explains a lot.

Normally she wouldn't care too much about two people trying to be aggressive on her. She could handle aggressive, but the whole thing somehow discouraged her. She's been for less than an hour in this place, and she had to run from three different crowds, and the unsettling piercing looks that everyone seemed to throw towards her made her mighty uncomfortable.

She realized, then, that aside the noise of the crowd, the music was bumped up to 11 in the mall. Too much noise, too many danger vectors. Lara was happy to finish her meal and just run away. She chose to call a taxi - she was finally able to function in a modern town with the phone finishing its setup.

The driver did not bother her too much, and she could sit there quietly for half an hour until the driver navigated through the dense traffic. He stopped at the edge of a huge boulevard, explained her how to reach the library, and left; she paid him in cash, unsure if Ana actually tracked her card activity or not.

Lara always suspected Ana of neferious intentions regarding the Croft estate and businesses. If there were such intentions, Ana never unveiled them - she always seemed quite calm, balanced, and generally nice to Lara, even if she did not lift a finger to help with Errol Croft's lawsuit. She was, after all, in a powerful position, where Lara could boot her off if she took over the company. She preferred to have Lara indebted to her, more than things being the other way around.

For a long time, Ana suggested that Lara was jealous of her relationship with Richard. Any hint of dislike Lara might show towards Ana was, therefore, covered by this jealousy, and this is why Lara eventually gave up fighting Ana. They were never friends, but at least they exchanged an occasional gift, and Ana sent over people to fix stuff around the mansion. Lara caught wind of her occasional fun weekends she had with Winston, and generally tried to ignore her occasional animosity based on that; but six months ago she noticed a strange device in one of the restoration works that Ana's people did around the manor. It didn't take her long to notice the increased surveillance in her home; she discovered soon enough a wire, and then followed it through the entire house.

She did all this discreetly. She started following the wires at night, she brought in some wireless jammers (which ended up messing with her own WiFi service, but that was something she was willing to pay for). She noticed that they barely touched the guest house and spent more time there. Winston used the times the watchers were too busy to watch Lara's morning exercises to identify and mask various recording devices.

But she couldn't know for certain that it was Ana who did all this. Why would she do that now? Soon the suit was over, and the verdict was pretty clear, despite Errol's efforts to block every step of the procedures. Was it blackmail? Was it something else?

She thought nothing when she received a call from Mr. Harris from MI6. He sent her a dossier, and asked for her utmost discretion. The queen herself sent her a brief, but Lara was not yet ready to pick it up; she did notice the increased surveillence happening after the visit from Mr. Harris. Was it MI6 spying on her, making sure she's safe for the secrets contained in the dossiers she received?

Lara kept track of all things she received from Ana, and made sure she wouldn't suspect anything. Her discussions with Winston were normal, although by now she built an entirely parallel persona she used to communicate with Winston via the internet. She was talking with him at the table and texting him on his private account - similarly, a parallel persona - talking about something else. She used for that a burner phone, that was in her hand only when she knew that she's not being watched.

Two weeks ago she noticed the watchers on the hill. They set up a post near her place, where they can look over the entire estate. Probably unhappy that by now most of their sources caught at most sound, most of them „accidentally” disabled by various accidents, her watchers came close, with what was obviously military-grade surveillance tech. She was more watched than the Eastern Bloc in 1989. Ideally, she wanted to confront her watchers, but she didn't know much about the operation. That's when Alexei and his gang came into the story.

She invented a Siberian artefact that was about to be transported into London, then secretly set up Alexei to make the transport. She then tried to aggravate him; that would make Alexei and his goons attack Croft manor, especially if they thought that Lara stole the artefact. The plan was unfolding, even without the knowledge of Winston, who really believed there's a Siberian artefact that Lara is hunting for. It was then that the Queen herself contacted her and rushed her to Romania.

Now she had a bit of a mess on her hands. When she received the call, she was still unsure who was tracking her. When Ana called to send „a team to work on the manor”, she started to suspect something. When Ana offered to host her at her mansion in Romania, things started to become especially creepy. However, the most shocking call was from Sam. Of all people, she couldn't suspect Sam of anything.

And, as she was now trying to find her way to a massive building in the middle of Bucharest, she couldn't think about anything but Sam. Was she a traitor too? Was she in league with Ana?

It was the thought she had as she tried to open the large door at the entrance, and finally noticed that there was absolutely nobody there, and the door was locked.

„What the fuck?” she heard herself say. The place was empty, and only a couple was passing by, walking towards the boulevard. Lara rushed towards them, asking them what's going on. Is there something happening?

„It's a holiday”, the reply came in broken English. „Itz zee Roossalee.” the girl smiled at her, eager to show her knowledge.

„The what?”

„Zee Roossalee. Big holiday”

„What's it celebrating?”

The girl looked baffled at her boyfriend, then raised her shoulders.

„Big holiday. Don't know.”

Lara felt her whole world crashing down. She started to hate everything that has happened to her in the past hours. She had ten days left until Prince Charles' transformation, and he had to come home, otherwise the Crown would have some serious explanations to offer.

She was fuming as she started to search for some acceptable overnight stay. She was fuming when the hotel she arrived at drove her to one of the filthiest rooms she ever saw, and was so mad she barely stopped herself from beating the manager of the hotel to a pulp. One hour and one hotel later, after a shower, she stood on the hotel balcony towering a park, sipping a glass of wine in the hope that she would calm down. It was then that she received a message from Winston.

„I took the liberty of forwarding Ms. Nishimura's e-mail.”

„Oh, shit.”

„Hi, Lara, you're an asshole. You promised you'll write, and you completely forgot about me. Again.”

Sam was upset. Very upset. She never sounded more upset than in these less than 20 words. All of a sudden, all her reasons to feel upset seemed small - this time she really fucked up. She promised something.

So she asked Winston to set her and Sam up with different e-mail addresses, and then took some time to write. She ended up writing a few phrases, but typing on the phone was annoying, and she soon stopped writing. She ended up with a more or less unexciting: „Hi, Sam, this is my new e-mail address, I fear that the other one is watched and tracked by someone. I had Winston contact you with this new address, and I promise you I'll write later, more, the way I promised. Love, Lara”

And as she was sitting on her hotel balcony, sipping from a glass of wine and inspiring the polluted air of a strange city, she thought that she would be a lot happier in the jungle, with threatening pumas or tigers. At least she knew where the danger came there: everywhere. But you could hear it, smell it, prepare for it.

She wasn't prepared for Romania. Nor for what happened next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RL gets in the way, but finally, I managed to finish this chapter. It was tougher to write, and I had to drop multiple possible threads. I'm not sure if I haven't messed up everything, but the story is still consistent in my head, and if there are any inconsistencies, I'll clear them up later. That being said, while I don't want to scare potential visitors off Bucharest, there is a heartless depiction of a few bad things happening to her, and the general feeling that a visitor might receive from the city. I hope this chapter is not a complete dive in quality, and I'll try to get better at this.


	6. A conversation with the Librarian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lara finally gets in touch with the Librarian - and everything seems to work against her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took quite a lot of time to write this; I'm in the middle of a huge project, and for the next month I'll probably not be able to continue the story in the rhythm I would like to write. Perhaps even this chapter is quite bad - I wrote it but dared not re-read it. You'll have to forgive me for that; it's hard to do it in a dust-infused environment after 10 hours of constant noise and people working around me. But here it is, I hope you will be able to enjoy this despite being written in such harsh conditions. I will try to publish the next chapter faster. And better. And yes, notes at the beginning because I don't really trust I did a good job with this chapter.

Loud noises of screeching cars woke her up. She didn't realise she was falling asleep - at least she would've gone to take a shower and close the windows. Instead, she fell asleep on the hotel balcony, still in her street clothes, in the unexpectedly comfortable chair. She reached for the phone that fell out of her hand in her lap, and saw the time. 3AM. Her head hurt but otherwise she felt fine; perhaps a bit tired.

She tried to remember what was she dreaming about. It was something quite abstract, about being unable to act. It involved Sam, and Winston too, but they were not the main point of the dream; instead, it was about the impossibility to reach them, with the two of them in peril.

Again, two screeching cars - definitely someone was racing down the boulevard, and Lara was drawn to it. Was there a crowd? Or just some lonely riders chasing each other?

She walked out of the hotel minutes later, ignoring the receptionist that tried to talk to her. She just rushed to the boulevard, in the hopes of seeing what's going on. To her dismay, nothing was going on - no crowd, no racing, just a few tired cars, most of them taxis, and an occasional motorist. Disappointing, she thought, as a police car went by her slowly.

She was up, though, and she thought it was a good time to take a walk around in the relative quiet. It was the kind of quiet Lara learned to appreciate after yesterday's mayhem and the constant buzzing of the city. An occasional drunkard, a few men walking the streets at night were not a problem for her. A few streets away there was a place one of the pamphlets in the lobby of the hotel recommended. The Athenaeum was indeed an impressive building, nicely illuminated, and she took her time on one of the benches in the park in front of it, admiring it.

She woke up suddenly as soon as her head fell; she didn't realize she closed her eyes, and slowly sleep crept back to her. She shook her head for a bit, trying to wake herself up and made her way back to the hotel, where the receptionist almost blocked her entrance.

„Miss Croft! You have a few packages that arrived late in the evening.”

Finally, some good news. She ordered some basic stuff off a local electronics shop, and didn't expect them to actually arrive in the promised interval. But they did, it seemed, and after a quick check everything seemed to be in order. But they were all there, most importantly a laptop she'll have a bit of trouble setting up. She took the laptop case and asked the receptionist to make sure that the packets are sent to her room as soon as possible - he looked dismayed, but didn't refuse the ten euro bill that she pushed towards him, despite his attemptive protest.

The setup procedure was long and boring to say the least, but at least an early coffee made the wait a bit more enjoyable. She took small break to use the hotel's gym, then a shower, and flirted with the idea of getting a short nap as well, only to realize that if she were to fall asleep she'll probably lose half of the day; decided against it, as the sun rose up, invading her balcony. As the sun rose, the cars started to fill the streets, and again, the omnipresent noise.

She finished her tools setup by 10 AM. She then looked again at the map, to make sure that there's no trouble finding the Library; she packed her laptop, and sighed. It will be a very long day.

\------------

The woman in front of her, occupying the imposing chair in an office that seemed outlandish for a library, looked like a perfect combination between a Bond villain and a typical russian babushka. It took only a few seconds of her speaking for Lara to realize that looks did not deceive in her case.

„You're late, Miss Croft. I expected you yesterday.” she broke the initial silence as soon as the door closed behind them.

„The library was closed.”

„I thought that's not a problem for someone like you. I overestimated MI6 once more.” the overweight, evil monster in front of her continued. Her thick accent just enhanced the disgust in her voice.

„I'm not MI6.”

„Then why are they working with amateurs? Don't they have their own people to do their job?”

For a second, there, Lara thought she was caught in an Eastern Germany dominatrix' shop. On the glass-plated desk there was only a Romanian flag, a rotary wheel phone, a notebook and a pencil, and Lara could see vividly the woman in front of her wrapped in latex, batting a crop in her own hand waiting for an aristocratic old boy to drop their pants and bend over the desk.

„They do, but this is not their business. It's mine.” she smiled wickedly, managing to bring, for a second, a smile on the Librarian's face. She was prepared for this - she pulled out a dossier and started to read from it.

„Inheritance, Croft Enterprises, historical sites prospector...”

„Ehm... that's called explorative archaeology”

„And you prefer to call it «tomb raiding». I read your interview in The Guardian, it was interesting...”

„Thank you”

„...and also a bunch of nonsense. What you do is illegal. Should we be concerned for our graves and cemetaries? Our historical landscapes? Our...” she burst out laughing. „I'm kidding. Of course not.”

For a short period Lara thought she could recognize one of the clearest british accents spoken by this unlikely woman interrogating her. But that accent was gone as if she heard herself talk as well.

„Indeed. Mr. Harris suggested this would be the best place to start the research for a passion project of mine. Vampires, that is. I'd like to look through your collection of texts from the XIIIth to the XVth century. I have a list...” Lara said, pulling a piece of paper and putting it in front of the short woman. She looked at it, dialed two digits on the phone, then, after a few seconds, she started enumerating something on an equal, commanding tone.

„I think I have a few of them. Not all. Your people are not well informed, and I find that strange, but I'll have my secretary make you a list of what can you find where. And...” she stopped as the phone rang loudly. A few more seconds of annoyed command passing via the phone, then she smacked the handset back on the fork. „Ah, that's something you cannot do with a modern phone.” she said in a very clean british accent, then she continued, switching back to the russianized one: „So, little girl, here's what we do. We have five out of the seven titles you have here. The other two are in our Brașov branch, and you'll have to visit them there. It won't be a problem, the archivist there was informed that you'll arive, and he will prepare the manuscripts for you. There's a problem with two of the five titles here. They are currently in the lecture hall, with one of our regulars. We can ask him to allow you access to the books...”

„No, that will be fine. I will talk with the reader instead, if that's fine with you”

„With me? It's a free country. You are welcome to talk with anyone.” Silence. „Almost. Anyway, in ten minutes you should go to the lecture hall, place A3. For how long should I keep it?”

„8 days”

„Are you sure? Today it's the 18th, your deadline is on the 24th. And you'll probably want to read the manuscripts from Brașov too.”

„What?”

„Is there something bothering you?”

„Why do you say that my deadline is on the 24th?”

„Are you joking?”

Lara looked at the incredulous woman, puzzled. The brief from Mr. Harris definitely said that the 27th is the deadline.

„Who are you?”

„The Librarian. But you already know that.”

„No, I mean, what is your job.”

„It's in the name. Librarian.”

Lara looked confused at her, again. She could not penetrate the short ball of fat with a bad 80s hairdo in front of her.

„Then what's this about the 24th?”

„You're not the first thief... uhm... exploratory archaeologist who walked around this place. It's always around this time of the year. It's always until the 24th. The solstice?”

„Did you have similar visitors this year?”

„Yes.”

„Were they looking for the same items as me?”

„No, unlike you they came prepared. And, to anticipate your question, indeed, it's your good friend, Mr. Alex West. You'll have to excuse Jo, he might've sent me more information on you that he intended.”

„What was he looking for?” Lara asked, the chair suddenly feeling uncomfortable, and trying to move to get a better position.

„He wanted to consult again one of the manuscripts after twice trying to steal it. I didn't appreciate his efforts, but he was quite a sight when he visited.” the Librarian winked. „But I don't appreciate my Library to be vandalized like that. We have a greater purpose that goes beyond a thief's momentary interests.”

„What exactly was he after?”

The Librarian looked again at the list. „Number three on your list. He probably just wanted an image. I allowed him to take as many pictures as he needed.” the Librarian snickered.

Lara nodded. Alex's presence here might mean trouble. What was the scoundrel up to? She should've known; Alex was the one that used the name of „explorative archaeology”, and she felt that it was a dignified name for what she called „tomb raiding”. She was never a fan of the expression, it felt like it put a corporate vibe to the whole thing, but why she didn't like it, it did give Alex a sense of dignity and professionalism. She preferred to be more honest about what she was doing, and despite being occasionally quite profitable, she was more interested in the fun of discovery rather than the money. Alex however...

Lara thought about what was in her file provided by „Jo” - probably a reference to Sir Jonathan Harris, chief of MI6 for European Affairs and a close friend of her father's. By the way the horrible woman in front of her winked, there were some notes about her relationship with Alex. She will have a talk with „Jo” when she got back home, but until then, she had to endure the scrutiny of someone who obviously had copious fun with his file on Lara.

The silence was broken by another phone call. „Your table is ready. I placed you in A3, in A2 sits the other person interested in medieval texts.”

„Thank you, much appreciated.”

„Oh, there's one more thing. The colleagues from MI6 asked me to offer you a present from two gentlemen. Mr. Heckler, and Mr. Koch.” the Librarian continued, pulling out a black case and pushing it over the glass. Lara opened it in front of the woman - she already knew what she'll find there - she was unsure if Mr. Harris could pull it off, but her case with a pair of HK USP, custom made for Lara, arrived safely. „I hope you won't go around shooting traffic controllers when you fail to validate your ticket properly.”

Lara looked at her quite annoyed. „What is an intelligence operative doing in such a dead-end position?”

The woman laughed. „I am no longer an intelligence operative, but I still have friends there. Like Jo. Anyway, how's your medieval german?”, she continued as they walked together through the Library halls.

„Rusty”

„You'll need it. But I think you knew that.”

„By the way, what happens on the 24th?”

„Nothing. Or, if you trust local folklore, at midnight the heavens open up, men-hating fairies dance in the fields, and only vampires have the courage to walk the Earth at night.”

„Do you believe that?”

„What do I care?”, the Librarian answered, and showed her the door of the lecture room. „A3. Good luck. I'll tell the Brașov people to keep a spot for you starting Thursday. There, at least, you'll be alone; those titles were not on Mr. West's list.”

It was easy to find A3 - a number of volumes were already stacked in one of the many empty spots in the lecture hall. What was not as easy was the moment she opened the books. As always, reading a manuscript was not an easy job; it was especially tough since she lied a bit. It was the first manuscript in german she actually read; and automatic translation tools would not help her. It didn't help her that, opening the book in the middle, it took her some time to realize that she held the book up-side-down. She looked around in shame, as if trying to make sure that nobody saw her. Luckily, the tall fat guy from A2 was out, probably for smokes, as he was carrying a tobacco-infused fragrance with him.

She tried deciphring the difficult script - she took a few notes, but it was definitely not enough. She then saw a message from Winston, and went outside to check it. Better yet, to call him.

„What's up?”

„Just wanted to let you know that the books from the library arrived. I started scanning them, but it will take at least four hours.”

„It's ok, Winston. Four hours is ok. And tell Mr. Harris that the Librarian said «Hi». Listen, I need you to find someone who can read medieval german and we can trust.”

„I'll see what I can do”

She closed the conversation with a long sigh. It's going to be a hard one, and she wished she had enough information in a timely manner. She should've had weeks, not hours, with the texts. She needed more time, but there was nobody there to offer it to her.

„Do you need to read something in medieval german? I might be able to help.”


	7. Dear Sam

Writing the words was harder than she expected. She had the beginning: „Dear Sam”. But everything else was hard to write. She was sitting in her hotel balcony, enjoying a surprisingly pleasant sunset over a polluted city after what has been a very long day. She felt like she wanted to write to Sam about that, but for some reason the words just got mixed with frustration. The „I'm sitting on a balcony, watching an awesome sunset” was easily replaced with „who made you reach for me now?”. „I'm thinking of you” was simply extended with „and your betrayal”. And as soon as she wrote the words she started to rationalize them.

Perhaps Sam didn't know what was going on. Perhaps her visit was a simple coincidence. She was long due on her reaching back to Lara; and even if it was confusion, or she needed space, she took her time to reach back to Lara. And she could tell she wasn't coerced to do so; many years ago, the girls settled on a key phrase that, once thrown in the discussion, would signal that one of them was in danger. Yet, Sam didn't use it. If she was there for some reason, it was her own mind and her own decision to be there.

Lara closed the lid on the laptop to enjoy the view, and lit up a cigarette. She wasn't a smoker, but she used cigarettes for inspiration - for a hyperactive woman like her, a cigarette was a moment to take a break. She never inhaled the smoke, her lungs were not ready for such an intrusion, but she puffed them, creating a cloud around her. She didn't mind the smoke, really, but she felt that inhaling it was an unneeded step; there was no advantage to inhaling smoke from civilian cigarettes, unlike the pipe from Peru or the special cigarettes from Amsterdam and Jamaica.

But when the ashes fell as the smoke was accumulating around her, she felt her creative side kicking in. She rarely felt „creative”, she felt more like a poser, conjuring an image of an old Hemingway with a cigar and a piece of paper in a cafe, smoking and drinking and writing. „And fucking”, she thought, opening the laptop again and starting to type.

„If there's anything I want to say to you is that I miss you”.

Lara stopped, looking at the phrase, and she felt dumb. All the creative wave just stopped in its track, dead. Words simply refused to let themselves be written. She stared into the screen, hoping that she had a bit more than this to say, but nothing seemed to surface. She ended up deleting everything but the „Dear Sam” thing that she definitely wanted to start with.

What was Sam? Not who, what, the question was the right one. Her lover? She did enjoy having her in her arms, she did enjoy watching her melt under her touch, she definitely loved the electric reactions when she kissed her skin. And when Sam answered back... yes, that was quite pleasant too. Sam was passionate and skilled, but Lara often caught herself thinking about past lovers while in bed with Sam. Sex with Sam was a compromise, always; most of the time, she ended up enjoying Sam's orgasms at the cost of her own satisfaction.

Perhaps that was the problem. That Sam was nothing but an occasional fun partner, someone she loved to be with from time to time, but definitely not enough. Sam knew that too - that's why she didn't ask for too much of Lara. Not until recently, at least, and when Sam didn't receive the feedback she expected... she took her time. She tried to find someone else. Allowed herself to be courted, but, like always, beautiful women were surrounded by syccophants and poisonous people. Everytime Sam turned back to her, betrayed and heartbroken, Lara just couldn't say no.

But couldn't say „yes” either. They were, indeed, linked by a promise, like all the teens promise themselves when they don't want to settle for the only person that finds them at least a tiny bit attractive: „we'll get married if we reach 40s and we haven't found someone else”. Lara didn't mind this promise. Sam... Sam perhaps hoped for that to happen.

Lara wondered a lot of time if it was true love. There was definitely an ingredient to be found in Sam's emotional make-up that Lara lacked. Perhaps that was it, true love. Lara was never able to feel something similar to the emotions that took over Sam; not even in her teens. Always accused of being cold; but it wasn't necessarily coldness. She just was... ready.

Perhaps when the first boyfriend, a week-long fling in middle school, started looking under another colleague's skirt, that hurt. The next time, as her father taught her, she was ready. She kicked his ass, and had to answer to the school principal's for that. She had to visit therapists - multiple ones, until she had a choice about that. „Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, I'm the only one to blame. But, ideally, nobody should be able to fool me even once”, Lara thought, and started to become ultra-cautious about things.

So when Sam was there for her, relentless, through all the hardships? Yes, that built trust. Would she trust her with her life, though, in the future? Today, the answer Lara would give would be... less than satisfactory. Today, she was afraid that that trust was gone.

And it wasn't only the fact that she reached out when everyone around her seemed to betray her. When even Winston acted as an agent of her enemies; true, not knowing that those were the enemies, but still. Winston, at least, was shamed into doing the right thing as soon as he understood his mistakes. Perhaps she'd be able to forgive him in the future. Sam? If Sam was doing the wrong thing out of naivete or because she was convinced it was the right thing, perhaps she would be able to get past that as well.

But it was also the fact that Sam abandoned her in more ways than one, only to reach back when everyone seemed to stab her in the back. Her uncle was fighting her in courts, Ana, her father's lover and business manager, kept her fortune hostage, her butler, help and caretaker, allowed their manor become a virtual TV reality show house? And now, when she finally got a way out, to have Sam drag her back in the mud? Spoling the only relationship that wasn't corrupted by all these murky things happening to her?

She had to allow herself a bit of time to cry. She cried for Sam as if for a long lost friend she had to bury. For the first time, in the warm Bucharest afternoon, in the balcony of her hotel room, with the sun almost burning her skin... she cried for Sam.

Lara allowed herself a few minutes to mourn the death of the Sam she knew. Then, a wave of hope came over her. Perhaps not all was lost. Perhaps... perhaps it's just a coincidence. Or a mistake. Or anything, any excuse would do. But she looked again at the screen, and seeing „Dear Sam” followed by a blinking cursor blocked her.

She looked at the watch. One hour until Andrei would visit her to continue their research. So perhaps, that's the thing to write about.

„Dear Sam,

I'm in Bucharest right now. As I told you, I'm on a sensitive mission that I can't talk to you about, but it will require quite a bit of research and effort, and it seems that I'm not alone in these efforts. From what I hear, Alex West was around too.”

She stopped.

She edited out „Bucharest”. She replaced it with „the hotel room”, then thought if it was a good idea to mention Alex. She remembered Sam hating Alex - part jealousy, part Alex being an asshole who tried to break Lara's heart and sell it for money. Perhaps she shouldn't do that either.

She removed the line about Alex, then went on to tell her about how interesting the city is, not mentioning the city at all. „it's an interesting mix of old and new, and everything seems to be suffocated by dust and pessimism.”

She wrote a few more things - she wrote about the park she visited (not mentioning the great Atheneum building). And then she stopped short of closing the letter.

She went to the bathroom and washed her face, just as the phone rang. „Someone is looking for you. Mr. Andrei Dumitrașcu”. „Please ask him to wait in the hotel restaurant, I'll come there as well in a few minutes. If you have something a bit more private?”

Ten minutes later she walked into a private box in the hotel restaurant. There was a lot to talk about and too little time.  
Andrei was in his mid 30s. Not old, but not young either, at least the way Lara saw it. She had an understanding of the relative ages of people, as she thought her father to be old when he disappeared, only to realize, now, that he was quite young, in his early 40s. When you're in your teens, people in your 30s seem like eternal giants that have the answer to everything. When you're in your late 20s, you know that 30s are just a pile of confusion, and you look at the early 40s with some sort of reverence, because that's where the successful people are. And by the looks of it, by the time Lara would reach her late 30s, she'll probably realize that the people in their 40s are just a different pile of confusion.

Regarding Andrei, he had this serious demeanor about him, which made him somewhat distant. He accepted the invitation as Lara promised there would be some financial gains for him, but he wasn't the sort to lose themselves in small talk. He probably wouldn't have started the conversation with Lara, he confessed, but one of the clerks suggested she might need some help.

„Mr. Doo-mee”

„Andrei, call me Andrei, it will be easier”

„Ok, Andrei, I need help. And what I want is a fast translation of the books I had this morning on the library desk.”

He had no reply to this, although Lara inserted a break in her speech.

„Is it doable?” she continued, a bit annoyed by his lack of response.

„Maybe. How fast do you want it?”

„Two days.”

He laughed.

„That's about 1000 pages, written in gothic typeset, with mistakes and many ways to interpret, in a medieval language.”

„Does that mean it's doable?”

„Yeah, it'll take me something like four hours”

For a second Lara had an enthusiasm burst, but then she calmed down when she looked back at Andrei.

„I don't appreciate sarcasm in others.”

„I thought you did, if you came with such requests. No, it's not doable. A good translator will translate about 10 pages of something mundane like current day English each day. If they keep up without breaks, in 20 days they might be pretty much burned out. And no, there is no good OCR for that kind of text, if that's what you had in mind.”

„Ok, so that's why my tools spewed what felt like garbage.”

„Probably. Why do you need those books translated this fast?”

She couldn't talk. She couldn't trust a stranger in this strange city with her own mission.

„What do you do for living?”

Andrei shrugged.

„Journalism, I guess. Clickbait, really. Clickbait pays.”

He was under contract to write six articles a day for a national newspaper, he explained while the food arrived. It's the sort of menial job you give to teenagers that want to make a quick euro. He had to take that job, though, as he had a big lawsuit on his back - he wrote in an article about a network of archeology site robbers that led to a Culture Ministry big-shot. His investigation, although well documented, didn't impress the prosecuters, who instead turned against him and accused him of being an accomplice to the removal of site artefacts. He now had to pay a huge fine and his name was tarnished forever. The clickbait job was a favor from a publicist, who wanted to offer a helping hand. He published those articles by translating from places like Daily Mail - it took him an hour daily to make a sloppy job, and then he could do whatever he liked.

„Divorced”, he added when Lara looked at his ring finger, that showed a clear sign of a wedding ring missing. „She took the house and all that was in it - otherwise I should have sold it to pay the fine. The point was to divorce on paper, but once the paper was gone she found out that Tinder was way more fun than a hungry historian at home. And I agree, Tinder is quite fun when there's no need to stay the night.”

They continued talking for a while - Lara was non-committal, but she said she'll contact him in the morning. Andrei shrugged (and that annoyed Lara), thanked for the meal and left the restaurant in a hurry, with his phone buzzing.

A few minutes later she took a walk as well. It was an unsuccessful day to say the least - the Librarian helped but didn't help much, staring at old german pages for hours didn't help her much either, and the only person that could help her was shady as hell. She needed a break from all these.

She walked around the hotel area - cars, cars and cars, with nervous people all around her, and polluted hot air. She regretted not leaving her leather jacket at home, and somewhere near the building of the University, a guy moving some merchandise in a small shop started whistling when he saw her. She tried to ignore it, and moved on, but it was just another thing to add to the list of things that she hated about this place.

She wrote Winston about Andrei, hoping he can make a bit of investigation on him. Winston sent her a message at around 11 PM local time, clearing him out - he confirmed with Mr. Harris, who discussed with someone trustworthy in Bucharest. He's clean.

She wondered if it was too late to call on Andrei, but after his phone responded with a voice-mail robot, she gave up, not leaving a message. She would call in the morning, and have Winston in the mean time prepare a confidentiality contract that would be OK in Europe.

She arrived at the hotel at around 11:30, and although she knew in her heart that this was 9:30 in UK, her body gave up on the timezone difference. She was exhausted, too exhausted to care. The moment she entered her hotel room she threw away all her clothes, and jumped in the shower, heading straight to bed.

It didn't work, though. She was too exhausted to fall asleep, in a tense equilibrium at the edge of anxiety. She tried to drink some more wine, but that only made her hate the idea of wine. After an hour of fighting with the pillows, opening and closing the balcony door, turning on and off the AC, she remembered that sometimes, all you need is a good orgasm.

There was no good orgasm for her tonight, though. She struggled for more than an hour to get mildly excited, and it probably was around 3 AM when she finally fell asleep, her hands dirty from an unsatisfyingly forced orgasm. She fell asleep feeling guilty about an unsent letter to Sam, and for a second there she felt like crying, or yelling at the moon, or just giving up completely.

She hated every second she spent here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should stop feeling apologetic about how badly the text is written and how long it took me to publish. But I really hope that soon I'll have more mental space to write and actually tell a story.


	8. A trust exchange

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's all about trust. If Lara cannot trust her own best friend, how can she trust some people from this awkward place?

„Dear Sam,

Sorry for taking so long to write you. I hate this place with all my heart - it's a place that seems to suck the life out of me, and everything feels difficult to do here. I wonder how people here, in Romania, manage to get anything done.

I had to hire some help - there are many things I could do if only I had more time, so I had to hire someone to help me. He's a historian, and he'll look over some old books for me. It's strange to do research on a theme that is already a carnival distraction, the way vampires are.

I've been mostly sitting in the hotel room and the library for the last two days. Perhaps I'll move out tomorrow, but I can't tell for sure. I need those books and there are literally thousand of pages to browse through.

What have you been up to? What are you doing lately? I realize that you never told me what you want to do from now on.”

Lara stopped before sending. The message felt short, but she had nothing to add. It told almost nothing that Ana's people didn't know already. If Alex West was here, he probably works for Ana, and he was looking for the same thing as her.

„This reminds me - Alex West is around. I hate the cocky bastard - we fucked twice, but now he acts as if I owe him the world. He was here, and he probably works on the same thing I'm working on - there's no other reason to come to this hell-hole. He is looking at the same materials I'm looking for; I only hope that I don't have to clean up his mess again. Let's not discuss about what he did last time.

But I don't hate him, really. We'd probably have a nice chat if he really was around. But everytime we did more than having a nice chat, he became an instant asshole.

I am looking forward to your letter. I need something that's not Romania and vampires.”

She sent the message first thing in the morning. She wondered if Sam will be upset with her for talking about Alex West. She decided, early in the morning, that she will trust Sam if she really wants to be her friend. After all, what's friendship without a little risk? After a prolonged, tormented night, she decided they are just friends who sometimes fuck because it's fun. She had to take that out of her mind, and perhaps admit to Sam that she suspected her.

But for the time being she expected Andrei to visit her soon. She asked for breakfast „in bed”, and asked that Andrei would be sent here when he came to the reception. They'd have breakfast in the balcony, and discuss the matter of employment. He arrived at 9 AM sharp, which was pleasantly unexpected. Clean shaven, with a black shirt and black jeans, he looked like a different man - a lot more serious than the wasted nerd she thought she encountered the day before.

She offered him a contract. He looked at it, and read it for a full ten minutes, reviewing it carefully.

„Yes, it's no good.”

Lara looked at him puzzled.

„Standard employment, taxes.”

„I don't care for that. Whatever money you give me legally, it will be taken away from me. I want cash, and I want it off the books.”

„That makes things easier for me too. Do you agree with the rest of the terms?”

„Yes, sure. Pretty standard stuff.”

„Ok. Sign it, we'll discuss your legal issues later. We have work to do.”

The first order of work was getting a digital version of the books. She made a copy from the documents that she obtained from the London Library, but Andrei looked confused. „We need to discuss first what you're looking for”.

But Lara knew that she didn't have much time. „Let's meet at 2 PM for lunch. By then I'll have the copies, and you can make yourself comfortable with Mr. Stoker's fantasies.”

Andrei seemed amused. „Digital copy of 6 old books from the National Library? By 2 PM? I want to see how that happens. In the mean time, I'll need a place to study.”

„Is this room ok?”

„It'll have to do, I guess.”

* * *

As she walked out of the hotel, Lara remained annoyed with Andrei's amusament. She soon found out why he was so. From the lazy clerk to the irritated one, to the „that's impossible! it will harm the books” of the head of the Lecture Hall, everyone seemed very opposed to the idea that books should be scanned and saved in digital formats, or the idea of doing anything remotely similar to what their job description was.

By one o'clock, the office clerks almost took the books from her table, but suddenly one of them said a name, and they stopped. In a broken English, one of them told her that she may read them at her desk or leave, then warned her about noise in the Library.

But Lara was there to make some noise, and she remembered that the Librarian suggested that she's at her service. So she tried to find her office on her own, and all of a sudden realized what a huge place the Library was. After missing a few doors, she finally found it, only to be stopped by a closed door.

„It's lunch time, do you British people believe only in the 5 o'clock tea?” the Librarian asked her 20 minutes later when she found her on the bench in front of her office. By then, Lara's blood was boiling, and the only reason why the Librarian found her sitting was because she was already too tired from walking around the place, and tried to calm herself down. She didn't respond to the offense, understanding that she was at a disadvantage.

„You seem upset. What can I do to help you?”

„I need digital copies of the books. We'll have to leave Bucharest and...”

„We?”

„I did hire the...”

The Librarian stopped her. „You did?”. She closed in on Lara, and whispered: „Miss Croft, I hope you will take care of my nephew, and you'll not put him in dangerous situations. I know your reputation”, she winked.

„Your...?”

„Now, can you tell me what you want?”, she shouted, as if she didn't just have the previous exchange.

„Digital...”

„Impossible.”

„But”

„I thought you were an honest person, Miss Croft. Instead...”, and she opened the door while she uttered the words, her accent gaining again that Russian thickness, „you want to steal from the historical archives of my own country? Get out, and don't come back again! You abused our patience long enough!”

Lara was baffled. She walked out, in the snickering of two of the clerks she fought earlier, who were waiting by the Librarian's door.

„This is where we keep two thousand years of sacred history, and you want to walk into it disrespecting my culture? Begone!”

Lara ran to the Lecture hall, only to find the books removed, and her notes in disarray. Somebody took the time to look over her notes - she had nothing important there, but knowing that someone looked through her scribbling annoyed her greatly. She looked over them, and decided against grabbing them, leaving everything as it was, and going for the exit.

She didn't understand what was the big issue, what happened in the Librarian's office. She walked out with a huge „what the actual fuck?” following her, and she was suddenly quite startled. She practically ran to the hotel, looking over her shoulder to see if she was followed. She ignored the staff as she took the elevator, and she entered her own room furious. Andrei was on the balcony, reading stuff from the laptop she borrowed him, and she went out there, sitting opposite of him, placing her guns on the small table after she picked up from the night stand.

„You have exactly ten seconds to tell me who the hell are you.”

„My grandmother said you might be upset, but I never expected guns.”

„Talk.”

„My grandmother found her office bugged this morning. She also received an official note that spies were interested in stealing some pieces of the patrimony of the National Library. She received your picture from the Romanian Information Service. She was to deny you any sort of service, and remove your access to books.”

„When was that?”

„Two hours ago. They probably don't know that you're staying at this hotel. I hear you used a fake name, and this place is probably the most bugged place in Romania. It was the most important hotel to receive tourists during the communist era, bugs are built in.”

„How do you know they're not watching me?”

„My grandmother knows things. But now we're beyond her ability to help. We have to go.”

* * *

Lara packed in a hurry, with some of the things she bought in Bucharest filling Andrei's backpack. Twenty minutes later they were entering a shabby pub on one of the many small streets in the touristic center. Not the usual kind of pub, but a very tight, smoke filled beer smelling place with four tables where a few patrons seemed too drunk for the hour in the day. Andrei assured her that they were drunk by 9 AM, when the place opened up.

„We can talk here.”

Of all the possible places, Lara felt this was the worst place to talk. She looked around suspiciously, and then looked back at Andrei who was settling in.

„Are you sure?”

„Yeah, this is your usual drunkard's bar, there's no chance in hell these people would be sober enough to follow a normal conversation”, Andrei followed up after he paid and brought two sodas from the bar. „Nor any of them might know English.”

It made sense. Lara took a few moments to get used to the dim light and the smell.

„I need to know I can trust you.”

„I don't know how can I convince you that you can. But, then again, I don't know how anyone can ever trust anyone. But at least in theory we have a contract that covers «information exchange» as well.”

„Sure.”

„But fuck contracts. Laws and contracts are meant to codify what already happens - so if someone wants to break a law or breach a contract, they will do it nonetheless. But ok, I'll tell you a story.”

* * *

„My grandmother's name is Elisabeta. She's not my blood grandmother - she died when my mother was five. I never knew her; my grandfather remarried soon after my real grandmother's death. He was a party aparatchik - a pretty powerful man, and he chose a very young orphan as his wife. Elisabeta was fifteen when they married.

That was the legal age, although there are suspicions about the legality of their marriage. But, as I said, a powerful man, he married her, and that was that. He pushed his now-wife in high places - and she got mingled with the Securitate - the oppressive information system that ruled Romania for the communists. She ended up working in the External Affairs Ministry.

I don't know much about her activity. She never talked about that, and I suspect she is still in the employ of the Romanian Information Service, but that's just something else. Either way, in 1980 something happened. I don't know what, but my grandmother decided to abandon her links to Romania, and run away from Romania. My grandfather died soon after - and my mother said that it was the communists who interrogated him and kept him in a very cold jail cell over the winter - he died of pneumonia. At least that's what the medical papers said - my mother never saw her father again.

After that, my mother was harrassed constantly by the Securitate. While she was pregnant with me they moved us out of our house to Brașov. My mother used to live in one of the more imposing houses in Bucharest, in the old neighborhood, but now she was moved to a small, two rooms apartment at the 6th floor. They interrogated her weekly, and at one point of time they were so brutal with her that she ended up in the hospital.

Now, this was a tough time to be in the hospital - a pregnant woman in a hospital was back then treated worse than a genocidal maniac, because the regime forbid abortions. And every pregnant woman was suspicious that she wanted to cause herself an abortion if she got to the hospital with any sort of problem. And my mother arrived battered and bruised, and she was placed under arrest in the hospital by the very same people who did that to her.

They harrassed us for the rest of the 1980s - so much so that my mother used to beat me everytime I did something that sounded remotely bad in the eyes of the regime. I remember I had this lesson at school where we needed to make words with the prefix «anti», and my mother wanted to see if I prepared for school. So she listened to what words I could make with «anti». It was the usual, «anti-fascism», «anti-capitalism», and my third one was «anti-communism». I think that's when my mother gave me one of the worst beatings ever.

And it was hard times for a confused child such as I was. I had to learn about how the party gave us large, well-heated apartments, and at the same time during the winter I had a block of ice at my window. On the inside. But anyway, the Revolution happened, and my grandmother came back to Romania. We rarely saw her - after all, she's no blood relative - but when I came here to study, my mother sent me to her. We never got along, but she has a few houses around Bucharest and she allowed me to stay in one of them.

She got her job at the National Library quite some time ago - and I used to sit around there a lot, mostly due to my work, studying the archives. She used to know a lot of people in politics and foreign affairs, but I guess I was stupid enough to think that she'll have my back when I had the problems with my articles. We don't talk much, that's why when she called me to tell me that we need to move and we need to move fast, I believed her. And I hate her with all my guts.”

„So she's a spy?”

„Maybe? I guess. I have no idea. I guess she would be a bad spy if _I_ had an idea.”

Lara nodded.

„You're right, I can't trust you. But I'll tell you the truth anyway. Even if now the books are out of our reach.”

„Not really”, Andrei replied. „I thought we might need this” he continued, pulling out an USB stick. „Last night I entered the library using my grandmother's credentials and I scanned all the books. And a similar stick waits for us in Brașov. We just need to get there, discreetly.”

Lara's face lightened up.

„So what are we waiting for?”

„A train. We still have an hour to burn. So you can tell me what are we looking for.”

Lara took the USB stick, looked at it, and tried to find her words.

„Remember vampires? Apparently, they're a real thing...”


	9. Lizzie's issue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lara finally talks about her mission as she and her new companion have to run away from the storm.

„A few weeks ago Her Majesty, the Queen herself reached out to me. She told me that she's worried about her son, Charles, as he's spending more and more time in Romania, and she hears less and less of him. Yes, a mother worries, even if she's the Queen. However, she couldn't relay all the details; she was pretty sure I know all the things my father knew about her son's mess with the vampire clans. «You, Crofts, are well aware of that», she said, and I was a bit thrown off my game. I knew nothing of what she was saying. So I started checking my father's archives to verify what Her Majesty, the Queen, expected me to know already; and it turns out that my father did, indeed, know quite a few things about vampires, and he studied the issue of vampires quite intensely.

Things are a bit of a mess in my father's research. I feel there are things he knew that he didn't need to research; you know, things that you learn from your parents, or your close friends, which you don't need to write down. So the past weeks I've been trying very hard to find that information. In the end, I had to dig into pop culture references and I eventually received the list of books that Bram Stoker used for his research. He was not a very good researcher, though. He based his understanding of the phenomenon on a lot of second hand accounts. And, also, he says nothing of Vlad the Impaler, who seems to be at the center of Charles' obsession with Romania.

In fact, although people associate Vlad and Dracula, Bram Stoker does no such thing - he says something about a Hungarian aristocrat living in current day Romania who moves near London. The aristocrat is supposed to be ancient, but Stoker documents a real event, and he actually talked in his research to a certain Wilhelmina Murray. In her letters she talks that the „evil is ancient”, but the aristocrat is not. She doesn't name him, instead she calls him „the devil's son”. She mentions in her letter the name „Drakul” - with a k, which is the name of the person who helped her.

Now, Mr. Stoker was not a great researcher; he borrowed some features of a creature from the Indian folklore, vetalas. He was interested in something else - for him, the metaphor of aristocrats sucking the blood out of „working people” was enough. But I wondered why he chose to talk about some Transylvanian count coming to England. And I did find an answer: a few years ago prince Charles claimed some land in Transylvania and publicized his blood lineage from Vlad the Impaler.

I tried to get my hands on a few more books on the character - Vlad the Impaler is probably one of the most slandered names in history. His antics became known because his adversaries had access to some of the first printing presses. His punishments severe - but not unknown to the rest of the world. Of course, we lack context - when a medieval person read about people impaled, did they feel the same way we did? I don't know. Perhaps that's not the point; the point is that there was a reason for that to happen.”

Andrei was listening intently, and as soon as she paused, he called the waiter, asking for water and two sodas. He then picked up the thread.

„Vlad was, indeed, slandered, but most of the things that he's accused of... those happened. Impaling his boyars, capital punishment for basic things - he was a tyrant, an evil ruler. His popularity is a strange thing - he's seen as a popular hero, but probably only by the current day people - his contemporaries were scared of him. There's a very catchy idea there, kill the rich who steal and lie, it was used by the communists to justify their own brutality, and fully adopted by the people who ended up equating wealth and evilness, lies and theft. But the only thing that differed from Vlad to other local rulers was that he got, as you said, slandered. His relative, Stephen the Great - or the Third of Moldavia in the Western tradition - was equally cruel, and they said that he had a stake saved for Vlad and one for the ruler of Transylvania, Matthias. The only difference was that Stephen was successful at keeping control of his dominion, and Vlad wasn't. Stephen is also a popular hero, but he had enough time to make himself beloved by the people living under his rule.”

Lara was listening, spellbound by Andrei's short discourse. She finally had the feeling she found the right partner for her research, and she became enthusiastic about everything. For the first time, a gleam of hope she wouldn't expect from this dark, dusty, suffocating place.

Andrei looked at his watch, and talked with the waiter again, placing a bancnote on the table.

„It's time for us to go. There's a train soon.”

They picked up a cab and, after ten minutes ride, they were at the station.

* * *

The „personal” train from Bucharest to Brașov is one of the slowest trains known to mankind. The train takes about five hours for 160-170 kilometers, and is passed by other, faster trains constantly, at times stopping for ten minutes in certain stations waiting for a faster train to pass. It's also one of the filthiest trains in Europe - from an unusable sanitary compartment to the omnipresent dust covering the vinyl upholstery, it is a shock to any traveler. But its best feature is the people - the train is dirt-cheap, and it serves the poorer villages between the bigger cities. Of course, poor doesn't mean bad, but in this case, the ill-repute of the train is well-earned. It's not that it's unsafe - it's just an ugly, filthy experience that you want done with as fast as possible - which this train is not.

The first few minutes, the dust and the grime made Lara feel like she's itching all over. Soon, her disgust was inflated by the sleezy look of some drunk guy who took a seat right in front of her. It took some time for Andrei to notice, as he opened his laptop and started reading some of the books he scanned - twenty minutes in he turned towards Lara only to notice her phased and disgusted look - only then he turned towards the sleazy ride partner and shouted a few words in Romanian. Lara recognized a Russian swear word, and (rightfully) assumed that Andrei brutally sent the guy out of the compartment. She made a mental note to ask him later about that, and sunk again in her own thoughts, safe away from the sleezy, prying eyes of the previous traveler.

The country side was underwhelming to say the least - once out of Bucharest, an endless string of shanties mixed with proper houses, untended fields and garbage dumps near productive fields, wrecked dirt roads and dust. A strange mix, and again, Lara took a mental note to ask Andrei more about this, and about Romania in general. He was lost in the reading of the books, consuming them at a speed that gave Lara the feeling he was pretty fluent in medieval German.

It was a good moment to take out her laptop and write a letter to Sam, although, again, she didn't know what to tell her. She wrote a few nothings about the dust and the suffocating heat, about the hotel she would be at in Bucharest - but she announced her plans to „leave to Brașov for Saturday”. She made a point in searching the proper diacritic mark for the place. She did send the letter while noticing that despite the entire misery of the place, the internet connection was fully functional and fast enough for her to actually watch some youtube videos.

But she was restless again, and after being dissuaded from using the restroom, she walked throught the car, in the vain hope of finding a restaurant wagon. Not a chance, but she refrained from asking Andrei about that, preferring to be disappointed on her own, or to discover some miracle. After all, she needed a reason to stretch her legs.

A few strange things as well, again, added to the list of stuff to ask Andrei about: the men were all grey and boring, but the women were either young and oversexualized or older and going full-babushka mode. There was no in-between. She came back to their compartment after spending what felt like half an hour going from the start to the end of the train, but what in reality was more like ten minutes.

As soon as the train entered the mountains, though, things were a bit more pleasant to watch. Less disarray, more raw nature, and, soon enough, some spectacular alpine views, including a shade of snow on the top of one mountain. „Perhaps I was in the wrong place all along”, she said to herself, and enjoyed the view more. Even the people who inhabited the wagons changed, she noticed after another round of stretching her legs - a few tourists, fewer drunkards, younger people too. It felt like the whole country changed.

A longer stop later, and Lara turned to her maps on her phone to realize that they aren't that far. Perhaps half an hour, she thought, as the train entered a tunnel and then another one. After the tunnels passed, Andrei started packing, and told Lara basically about how he found nothing interesting yet. Mostly economical exchanges, nothing more, and nothing suspicious there either - an occasional turkish carpet, stuff that would probably excite a few local historians, but really, nothing else.

„We'll get down here - it's not yet the city, but it's close enough. If someone monitors the entrance, most likely this is the last one to monitor.”

The station was small indeed, and the train stopped and went a few seconds later, forcing Andrei to jump off the slowly moving train. A few swear words, and a „Damn, I haven't tried this in quite some time” later, and Andrei came after Lara, asking her if everything is alright. Lara shrugged, and asked where to go.

„I have a friend that owns a house in the city center. She said we can stay there for a while. She's also the one that has the other books for us.”

* * *

Indeed, there was a huge difference - an old, German town, cleaner, with small streets one could objectively not get lost in, but one could try, with a huge „Council House” and a big, black Gothic church nearby. It looked like the main attraction of the city, as well as the big hill neighboring the city center which had the word „Brasov” written in big white letters, Hollywood style. It was a nice place for a vacation if you could ignore the million visitors making a crowd around everything. Lara hated crowds.

But Andrei soon found a place less crowded, where one could order a drink. The friend soon arrived as well, bringing a key and an USB stick. She was a nice woman in her thirties, with a wedding ring on and a belly that suggested a baby on their way. She was chirpy, and very outspoken: „You two are looking so good together”, she blurted at one point of time, with Andrei blushing heavily trying to fight back the idea that they are together. „No, no, we're just friends”.

She seemed unconvinced, and Lara preferred saying nothing, but smiling a bit, almost encouraging the woman whose name she didn't catch properly, and she was too shy to ask again. After an hour of meaningless discussions about what's new, what's not and how are things in Bucharest, she eventually announced that she had to go, giving Andrei a few last pointers about the house, in Romanian.

As soon as the woman left there was silence between the two, Andrei looking at the beer lost in his own thoughts. Lara thought it was best not to disturb him, and took some time to relax as the sun light was going away - it was already quite late.

„Who was she?” Lara asked in the end, trying to wake Andrei up. He was reluctant to give a proper answer, and just said „a friend”, then turning the discussion around. „Ok, so you said something about a mission here, about Prince Charles. I think you cut your story short in Bucharest. But first, let's order something.”

* * *

After a surprisingly competent meal, Lara continued her story, but, as the night was falling the place became a bit too crowded for a sensitive discussion. So Andrei suggested they should leave the place, leave their luggage at the apartment, then walk a bit around the city. „There's this alley under the mountain, it's quite a nice walk, and it's quite easy to reach”, he promised. He wasn't wrong. A dimly lit alley cut in the slope of the hill, with a couple of gazebos near a water fountain, offered a quiet walk in the warm air of the summer night. Lara took some time to resume her story, enjoying too much the quiet and the fresh air.

„Brașov is quite a dusty city, but this place is always nice. It is usually more crowded than this, not that I mind being so deserted today. It's probably the fact that it's a week day and there's no holiday soon.”

„But there was one.”

„Yes, the Rusalii, the sort of holiday that most people don't know or care what it's about. Most people, if you ask them, have no idea what that holiday is about; it's a holiday and that is enough. Sometimes, business people complain about the many holidays that Romania has. But people tend to forget that humans are not made to work that much for the entire year. If you ask me, there should be more holidays. The average man works way more than the average peasant in the middle ages. Unless they were serfs. But heck, who cares about serfdom, it's long gone now, right? Now we have «employment»!”

„You sound like a disgruntled communist.” Lara laughed at him, as she sat on one of the benches of a gazebo.

„Not really, although from your point of view it's probably correct. I got these things conflated - in Romania, communism is not about worker-people politics, it's about tyranny and abuse more than social politics. That being said, I do think that people work too much, and that causes a lot of problems. Anyway, this wasn't about my politics.”

Lara nodded. For once, she met what seemed like a man passionate about his political views, refusing a chance to talk endlessly about his politics. Her appreciation for the guy in front of her grew exponentially.

„Ok, so my mission was a strange one. With the very few things I knew and the very few things I discovered, I had no clue on what to do next. It was then when I noticed that my house was being surveilled. At first, I thought that Her Majesty's Secret Service was the one doing the surveillance, but having the fortune of knowing the very head of the Secret Service - he's an old friend of my family - it was easy to discard that version. Someone was aware that I was contacted by Her Majesty, the Queen, and...”

Andrei snickered.

„Whaaaaaa?”

„It's just that I could hear the capitalization in your voice. It's funny, sorry.”

„Well... That is the proper way to talk about her.”

„I don't know, you said that she called «woman to woman» in a personal matter.”

„You can't call her by her name. What would I call her, Lizzie?”

„Well, that's a much better version than that mouthfull.”

Lara rolled her eyes.

„Fiiiiiiine. So someone seemed to be watching me because Lizzie contacted me before. And nobody could tell who it was - only that it was privately contracted. In the end I found out who it was, but not so much why. Anyway, one day Her... ehrm... Lizzie called again. She told me that she received a message from Charles, that he's to receive the Order of the Vampire soon. She was frightened. She told me that I had to come and stop this, if possible; it would be a tragedy if Charles was to receive this Order”

„It is an Order, her house can refuse that Order after the fact, can't they?”

„Not according to the only book I found useful. It's one on the list of Mr. Stoker's research. It tells that transformation into a vampire is done in an Order granting ceremony. It's a part that Stoker discarded in his research, he preferred much more the version of an ancient evil living forever. He was more looking into shaming the British aristocracy for sucking the blood of people in Ireland, but he was truly bad at doing this and the book is not very explicit about that aspect of his intentions. I think he was so much enthralled with the idea of vampires that he simply forgot why he's writing the book.”

„That being said, the list from Mr. Stoker's research names the titles I gave you as the books that would clarify what is up with the Order of the Vampire.”

„Well, Mr. Stoker might've been over-reaching and hoping for too much from these books. Three of them are... hmmm... ledgers? Commercial accounts, debits and credits of Brașov merchants during the time of Vlad the Impaler and Stephen the Great. Barely relevant.”

„Is there something strange there? Something that doesn't seem to be in its place?”

„That'd be impossible, most of the things there cannot be out of place, we might just don't understand the purpose. For example, it took some time to understand from a similar ledger that «green bitter beans» were coffee beans - at one point of time a merchant tried to grow his own coffee here. But in this one, no, I don't really see such things.”

„Ok, so I think what we're looking for is some ritual that happens in the middle of the summer. Your grandmother is quite certain that there is a reason for that to happen soon.”

„Why would you care what my grandmother has to say?”

„She seems to know more things that she lets on. Ok, so tonight is the 19th - she suggest that on the 24th something will happen. That's the summer solstice. What happens on the summer solstice?”

„I guess you're not interested in the whole sun thing. I'll think about it. I think I might have something, but I need to read a bit more. I'll also study the ledgers again, and have a look at the books that Diana brought” he continued, showing the USB stick that the woman left with the keys to the apartment. „Ok, so we're looking for stuff happening around the summer solstice. That might help me.”

He turned quiet, and Lara realized that she was too tired to actually continue the discussion. Andrei seemed tired too, but they were walking on the small street leading to the apartment.

The apartment was actually a tall, long room with a small table, an armchair and a large bed - on the side there was a small entrance to the bathroom. The floor was old wood - it squealed under each step, making it impossible to move around quietly - but even so, Lara felt the creaking of the floor it had a calming effect.

A few minutes later, Lara took over the shower. She needed this - a long, warm shower after a long day. She switched the shower head to the most punishing setting, her skin almost hurting under its concentrated pressure. As she massaged her back, for a few seconds she considered whether she should just lay on her back against the shower wall, spread her legs and let the torrent finish the job. She teased herself, but then she remembered she was not alone.

„And there is only one bed”, she thought of the trope as she brushed her teeth, not finding a proper solution in her mind. But as she got out, dressed with the pyjamas she had to buy a few hours earlier (hers were still at the Bucharest hotel), she saw Andrei already sleeping in the recliner armchair. It probably wasn't his intention, but probably fell asleep as he was waiting for her. She tried not to trigger the creaking of the floor as she looked for a clean blanket, and covered him, tip-toeing her way to the bed after turning off the light. But the lights of the main square and the almost full moon kept her half-awake, fighting off strange, violent dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG, there is only one bed! It took some time to write, because defining Lara's mission in a way that's not dumb was harder than I expected. Not that I had to *invent* her a mission, I knew from the start which was her mission. Just putting it into words that don't feel silly was harder. That being said, Lara is turning up as bottling a lot of sexual frustration. There are easy ways to fix this and there are hard ways to fix this, and I still wonder which way would Lara go. I expect some smut in the next chapters.


	10. The night that never happened

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lara has a nightmare, and she decides that she needs something else to release the tension.

Lara was back in London, with an invitation in her hand. Something written in a language she didn't understand, but fortunately, she was at the address. A concierge welcomed her, and lead her to the main hall.

A huge hall, all red and golden, with a huge, central overloaded candelabrum. The room was barely lit, though, the lights were faint, coming from candles faltering in the candelabrum. Even so, she noticed the ornate room, overwhelming, the air suffocating, as she made her way through the crowd. Suddenly, she heard a loud voice with a megaphone reverberation: „Ah, Miss Lara Croft, stealer of the Croft estate, unworthy ancestor of the great Croft family, unable to do a simple thing for Her Majesty, the Queen!”. The laughter was loud - and the laughter of the crowd almost managed to cover the big voice that was filling the room. The voice was laughing, and then she recognized it - it was her father's, sitting on a podium in the center of the room. By his side, Ana, keeping a hand around her father, laughing. The crowd around Lara pulled back - only a few remained. Right in front of her, Sam, all naked, walking towards her as on a long catwalk, swinging her hips in an exaggerated manner. Closing in on her was Winston as well, hand in hand with Ana, or someone looking like her. To her left, a laughter - it was Alex West, at a table with Errol Croft, playing cards over the deed of Croft Manor. All around, the crowd transformed in an infinite array of Ana, Winston, Sam, with the naked, catwalk Sam still walking towards her, but never coming closer. Lara tried to close the gap between them, but she only got further, while Sam was getting taller, 6 feet, 7 feet, 10 feet. Behind her, Ana was laughing, touching Sam's hips.

She yelled towards Sam, but then, Sam took off her face letting Lara see a monstruous raw red face. The same did Winston, and Ana, and the million of Anas surrounding her. Alex continued to play cards with Errol, who was too fat to actually see what's on the table. He was petting his oversized belly, turning from time to time in his chair to look at the table, and to touch with his greasy fingers the deed to the house. Richard was still on the podium, talking in his megaphone, but his voice started to sound like a parody of the Queen's: „My dear, will my son die because of you?”

Someone grabbed her hand, and pulled tight. A new face. A dimly lit face, a face she barely knew.

„Hey, hey, wake up”, the face said, and as the face closed in Lara screamed.

Andrei pulled her hand again, as she threw him back.

„It was just a nightmare. Wake up.”

Lara sprung out of bed, almost knocking Andrei's head. Her heart was racing, and she suddenly felt suffocated, but was barely functional, trying to reach for the window. After recovering swiftly from his knock, Andrei realized what Lara was trying to say, and opened the windows, letting the cold night air in. Lara struggled to calm herself down, fighting with the pajamas blouse that was caught in the whirlwind of her night's struggle. „Fuck this”, Lara thought, and just pulled her blouse off, finally freeing herself, leaning over the window trying to catch her breath.

„Are you ok?” Andrei asked, putting his hand on her back as Lara was still trying to control her breath.

„Yup, all good”, she uttered, eventually, after breathing in and out in a more controlled manner a few times. „It was a nightmare indeed”, she said, feeling the need to fill the void of the conversation. She turned around leaning against the window, her upper half naked. Andrei looked her in the eyes, barely distracted, trying to be helpful: „Can I do anything for you?”

Lara was still controlling her breath, and looked at the blouse in her hand, the strange material clinging to her arm as she fought it off her. „This was a blouse I bought from store here, I underpacked for this trip. I think it's not the best fabric I ever wore. Do you have a clean T-shirt to spare?” She threw the culprit in the corner, missing the garbage bin only just; she then dressed a black T-shirt that Andrei got from his own backpack.

„Thanks”, she said, holding his hand tight. He nodded, answering in kind, then, after a few moments of silence between them, he pulled his cigarettes. „Do you mind?”

„Nah, I'll have one too”, she said, and picked up one of the cigarettes from the pack that Andrei showed her. They lit them up, and started smoking quietly.

„You don't really smoke, do you?”

Lara confirmed. „No, at least not this kind. But I like the gesture. It has some quiet dignity about it. I puff a cigarette from time to time, though, and I had a few nice cigars in Peru”

„Not a place I knew had good cigars”

„Me neither, but they had some good ones. Definitely cleaner, less... smoky?” She puffed her cigarette again, and almost immediately exhaled the smoke. „But I definitely like the smoke, too. It works well with a good spirit.”

Again, the silence set between the two, interrupted only by a longer smoky exhale.

„So what's the story with you and the woman that owns this place?”

Andrei remained quiet for a while, finishing his cigarette and lighting another one.

„Hmmm.” He paused, and eventually continued. „We used to be lovers. It was quite an innocent highschool thing. Unfortunately, she had a less than innocent highschool thing with my best friend back then. And that's one of the reasons I wanted to move from this city.”

Lara nodded. „It's been quite some time.”

„We're keeping it friendly. In a sense, leaving made it easier to break things up without breaking them too violently. And, ehrm, a few years ago we had a less than innocent thing too.”

Lara laughed: „The devil, you.”

Andrei smiled. „Let's say that it was better that way. But she still feels guilty somehow. And guilt works well for me. Well, for us, in this case.”

Lara leaned over Andrei, and grabbed another cigarette. „Some scotch would work amazingly here”

Andrei nodded, and left his cigarette on the ceramic ashtray on the sill. He then opened a small door in the furniture, and revealed a number of bottles. „They used to be well stocked.” He grabbed a small bottle of Jack Daniel's, checked its seal to make sure it was not opened, while Lara reached for the glasses on the table.

„Well stocked indeed”, she said.

„Yes, they keep this apartment on AirBnb. We're pretty lucky she had it still unoccupied - we have it until Tuesday.” Andrei uttered while filling the glasses.

„That'll do. Ice?” and without waiting, she left her unlit cigarette in the tray, and took the glasses to the fridge. „Ah, nice”, Lara said, pushing some cubes out of the ice tray and into the glasses. „So, what was she like?”

Andrei filled his lungs with cigarette smoke, and the gradually released it, as Lara brought the glasses.

„A gentleman never tells.”

„Oh, they do, they spill it all like they're a broken bucket. Trust me, I'm a Lady.” she snickered, as Andrei lit up her cigarette.

„Do they?” Andrei couldn't stop smiling, and he continued. „She was quite boring, to be honest, I did all the work and she just laid there. I guess, she didn't like to make too much effort.”

„Was it a one time thing?”

„Nah, it happened a few more times. Not a huge improvement, really. I tried to show her a few things, at one time she actually asked me to spank her, then complained when I did.”

„Her husband?”

„Haven't seen him since highschool. She complained that he cheats on her constantly, but it can barely be called cheating if she knows about it, and she lets him do it. And it's not like she's been Little Miss Faithful.”

„Maybe she just had a thing with you.”

„Hey, I'm not judging, but she's the one that introduced me to Tinder, and she's an avid user. But enough about her. She's actually way too boring to deserve this sort of attention. Tell me about you.”

„What about me?” Lara frowned, looking back at Andrei.

„Well, you're alone, travelling with a guy you don't know, and you're telling nobody, talking to nobody...”

„Actually, I am writing to somebody. My friend, Sam. My...” but Lara struggled with the next word, and Andrei didn't insist. „I don't know what she is to me. I guess she could be my girlfriend, but really, we strayed too far from each other. And I'm not sure I ever loved enough to be more. Perhaps she did, though.”

„Uh, for a second there you had me fooled. I thought Sam was a guy.”

„Ah, because of the name. I never thought about that.” Lara inhaled, choking a bit on the smoke. „Anyway, I think I'm keeping her confused, but she's surrounded by assholes, and it's hard for her to find anyone decent.”

„That sounds complicated.” Andrei responded, leaning over the sill to look outside towards a large building on the side, where two drunkards were having a spat.

„Not that much, really. It's just that we never quite had time for each other. I was never bothered by her occasional lover, she was almost excited when I told her about my adventures, with Alex, for example.” Lara laughed. „Yes, Alex is a guy.”

„Oh”

She swang the glass, then drank it all in one go, filling it again.

„I think we might need a refill soon. Do you have any local drinking songs?”

„We have a whole genre that you can only listen while stupid or intoxicated.” Andrei jumped off the sill and opened his laptop - quite soon a strange type of music filled the silence, and a gutural woman's voice started singing.

„That's Maria Tănase. She sings about some good wine.”

Lara sipped from her drink, inhaled a bit more of her cigarette, and listened. The song felt like a wine carousal - softer, something in the music calling for swinging and spinning. She looked at Andrei with a long look, enough to catch a glimpse of a smile as the song finished.

„The wine is good when you drink it with a beautiful person, and you choke on it when you drink it with an ugly one”, Andrei explained the final lyrics.

„Play it again, and let the woman sing other things as well. I like her voice.”

„She had quite an amazing voice, didn't she?” Andrei said while typing on the laptop, and queueing some other songs. As soon as he put the laptop down, Lara was hovering over him. He turned around and looked at her, puzzled, while Lara pushed herself towards him.

Andrei tried to stop her, but inadvertently he fell on the bed, pushed by Lara.

„I think you're drunk... I don't want to take advantage...” he tried to protest, as Lara pulled down the T-shirt, letting her intentions known.

„I'm not, and you're not. If anything, I'm taking advantage of you”, she whispered after she put her legs around him, then leaned over him, pulling up his T-shirt enough to let her full breasts touch his bare skin.

If there was any protestation in Andrei's voice, there was none in his body - his hands were already on her ass, pulling it softly towards him, enough for Lara to feel his cock through the clothes. But Lara was leading the dance, her hands around his neck and under his head while she bit her way to his lips. She kissed him, immune to the smoky taste, and sucked his tongue while drowning both in a sea of red hair.

She pulled herself up, his hands trying to pin he back down, unable to fight her movement. She raised on top of him, her hips firmly around his waist, feeling his cock's vein pulsating through the thin layers of clothing. But her focus was different - she shook her head, using her hands to straighten it a bit, then catch it all in one tail. Andrei was stunned, her toned body, her full, round breasts towering magnificent over him. He dared not reach them, admiring the woman he never dreamed about preparing herself to devour him.

It took more than a few seconds to tame her own hair into a tail. Andrei, in the mean time, got rid of his own shirt, and got his hands back on her ass cheeks, pulling down her pajamas; but after barely succeeding to uncover a bit more skin. He then pushed himself up, almost tilting Lara as she was still fighting with her hair - he managed to free his cock out of his own clothes, enough to feel her warm dampness for a moment, just as Lara finished with her distraction.

She got off him, and off the bed, pulling his pants down to his ankles, but keeping them there, amused at his half-immobilization. She then turned her attention up, to the cock pulsating in front of her. She recognized the signs - she could finish him in two seconds, but she needed his patience, so she grabbed his cock, slowly pulling down on its shaft, uncovering its head from under the soft skin. She kissed him at the base of his head, and the effect was almost electric, his body twitching as he fought to get up, to respond, to take control. But she merely pushed him back, and he fell on the bed powerless, his body twitching in anticipation.

She swallowed his head, knowing that he'd feel her teeth almost unpleasant. She tried to be gentle, though, but his cock was surprisingly thick, curved towards his belly, and throbbing slowly, slightly thicker after each involuntary pulse. She managed to swallow him, eventually, after turning her head a bit on the side, pushing him down her own throat, balancing her need to breathe with the pleasure of feeling his thickness so deep inside her mouth. Her hand bagged his balls, and she felt the need to hurt him a bit, squeezing them softly. Her fingers felt at the root of his cock at the same time - and as she felt the giant muscle throbbing all the way up her throat, her own gag reflex fighting back, his balls starting to get wet in her own saliva, she let the middle finger caress his cock's base, feeling how his body reacted.

She pulled back a bit, then, after a long breath, she took him in, more comfortably than the first time, her fingers now dripping wet in her own saliva. She let her middle finger go over his root, then go deeper, between his ass cheeks. She caught him completely by surprise, his butt clenching automatically. But then, he relented, trying to welcome the tease and the small, wet penetration.

But Lara's patience was wearing thin, and she knew by now that he was ready. She abandoned what she started, and simply climbed on top of Andrei, shedding her pants as well. He was like anesthetized - his movement slowed under her control. As she promised, she was the one taking advantage. She grabbed his cock, and placed it between her thighs - she then patiently lowered herself, until the tip of its head was struggling against her lower wet lips.

Andrei couldn't bare the wait, and pushed himself violently towards Lara - but impatience made his cock slide off her cunt, and up against her butt cheeks. He sighed at his miss, and raised Lara's waist again, finding her wet lips wih the tip of his head. She then took over, taking his cock in her palm, leading it patiently while his thickness split her lower lips. As soon as she felt his full thickness, she slammed her body against his, letting his cock sink in fully. Not the longest she ever had, but the thickness surprised her even more than she expected.

As she fell on him, taking him fully in, she stopped, enjoying the moment. She then started riding him slowly, and when his hands tried to cup her ass cheeks, she slapped them. She welcomed his palms around her breasts, as she increased the rhythm. But she felt it was not enough, as she took him in, as she ground against his cock, she needed more. More stimuli. She almost regretted slapping his hands, she wanted to feel them. She pushed herself over him, and sunk her teeth in his shoulder, while her hands were seeking a bit of balance. She managed to find it, at the expense of ruining her own rhythm, but then she grabbed a handful of Andrei's short hair, and squeezed tight.

His pain excited her, and she could feel the effect in his cock sinking deeper inside her. She slapped his face - not hard, but enough to see his face red and flustered, but his body jerking under her, trying to respond. She let herself fall over him, crushing her boobs against his chest, and her lips whispered to him slowly, heavy, with huge pause between words. „I. Want. Pain.”

She then bit his neck, then raised and sucked his tongue, sinking her teeth in it, while Andrei was bucking under her, desperate to fill her already full cunt. As she violently kissed him, though, he regained a bit of control - he pulled her tail merciless, as if he tried to raise her by her hair - she pulled back, enough for his right hand to grab her throat and choke her. A few moments later she ran out of breath, surprised by his move, and she felt her body jerk uncontrollably. She welcomed his change, and pushed herself against his hand, choking herself more than he intended. Her head exploded, her whole body quaked in an uncoordinated explosion.

She couldn't remember anything from the next five minutes. She couldn't remember how she ended up under Andrei, her legs on his shoulders, her hands around her knees, pulling tight against her chest, while he was pumping her hungrily. She did remember catching back her breath as his hands split her ass and his fingers pressed against her asshole as she was cumming hard. But after that her mind exploded, as she mouthed a „don't stop” and „more”. For a few minutes the mind just left her body in the claws of her orgasm. And he didn't stop, hungry for more.

She looked him in the eyes as he was over her, leaning between her legs, penetrating her deeper than she could take him. It almost hurt, but she didn't want to stop him - the animal in him was ready to sate his hunger, and as he took what he needed his eyes were watching her the way a wolf stares as his prey. She freed her knees, pushed back by his shoulder, and, as a last gesture of defiance, she slapped him. His eyes never left hers, but his body lost control completely.

She never thought she'd feel his explosion the way she did. Her body responded in kind, welcoming what she knew was a thick liquid wave. He fell on her, almost uncomfortable; it took her a few seconds to gain enough control over her limbs to take them off his shoulders, and manevrate in a more normal position, carefully, unwilling to let him out of her.

* * *

She woke up a bit after the break of dawn, with Andrei's hand cupping her breast while the other one was covering her belly, and his cock, now shrank to an unimpressive size, between her thighs. He was sound asleep, though, and never felt her release from his grasp. She then took her time under the shower, still tired.

She got dressed fast, and left a message on the bed. She started running, following the small streets and then the marked path towards the city name sign, raising her own rhythm until she started running. She finally had some clarity, and as she shed her first sweat, close to the top, she knew what she wanted to say to Sam in person.

As she reached her destination she started thinking about the other problem. The reason why she was here. The things that don't really add up - that finally, started adding up.

After what felt like a few minutes with the view of a city receiving its first sun rays, but her phone confirmed it was hours, she called Andrei.

„I have found something for you.” he responded without saying a word.

„Me too. I'll be there in an hour.”

It took her less than half an hour to get back down in the city. She cut the serpentines that she climbed to the top, and she entered the old house exactly 31 minutes later. The room was clean, the bed made, and Andrei was staring at his laptop in the armchair. Her message: „Off for a run, will be back later”, was on the table, over her backpack. She looked at it, then looked at Andrei.

For a second she was afraid that the night was a mistake. She threw him an inquiring look, waiting for his reaction. And just as he wanted to speak, she broke the silence.

„About last night...”

Andrei had the full morning to think about what to say next. He woke up as Lara was taking her shower - but did not move as she touched him softly on his arm, wrote the message and left it in bed. He got up as she closed the door, and thought about what happened. And as Lara came back, he knew what to say about that.

„I hope you slept well. You had quite a nightmare.”

She needed nothing else. There was no need to talk further about this.

„I think I found what you were sent to look for. And it's a fake. You've been duped to come here.” Andrei continued.

„I know. Let's talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess this makes me have to update the tags. I felt like Lara needed some clarity, and she had to somehow wash away her insecurities, her hesitations and her frustrations. And she did. Alcohol is not the culprit, only a helping hand. Don't do that at home! (or do that, with someone you trust and care for)


End file.
